Genre: Satirical Non-fiction | Pages: 105
Star rating:
Book Intro by Brendon Luke:
Public Enemy No.1 is the second book from author Brendon Luke. A Satirical look on modern travel and the way our middle class society views it. Every trip has to come from an idea, an idea to leave something behind, an idea to create something new, an idea to change. What does travel mean to you? Does it mean an undying love for newness? A joy found in continuous discovery? Or is it simply a means to an end? Travel, like many things, can excite a light in anyone. Here is where my middle-class privilege really shines. Here is where my pathological inability to walk in another’s shoes becomes apparent. A Syrian child fleeing genocide is probably not going to romanticise travel the way I do, a Kurd exiled from their homeland will not revel in the worldliness of travel brought about by the loss of their ancestral homelands, a migrant farmworker will not gain #wokeness from their travels for minimum wage farm work. The travel I know and love is the travel of middle-class white people with sufficient disposable income and sufficiently comfortable lives to find bar tending in London a novelty. I am disappointed to say I have no experience with the #RichKidsOfInstagram type of travel, but I’m sure I would take to it like a duck to water. In my last book I attempted to be inclusive, but this book will not be like that. I grew up solidly middle class and more than a little spoilt, not my fault, but I will write about what I know. I don’t know what life is like genuinely poor; I don’t know what life is like when your options are limited. I am what I am, and I make no apologies. For those of you who didn’t grow up as me, this book will be your version of travel education, your opportunity to walk a mile in my shoes, your opportunity to ogle the exotic life of someone else.
My Review:
Let me start off by saying that, this is not one of those books where it might seem like a good idea to pick it up and read it without understanding the genre or the style in which it’s written. Understand what “Satirical Writing” means or you’ll be missing half the point. Public Enemy No.1's Guide On How To Travel is modeled by a Gay Gen X author sharing his Travel experience, trash talking, throwing words of wisdom and mocking the way Millennial and Gen Z travels.
I had to keep checking my bias as a Millennial. Although the later generations are more understanding and accepting of the sexuality spectrum, to see what the author had to experience was the gap that struck me the most- the same gap between knowledge and belief that resulted in his bitter experiences.
This book contains a lot of hidden gems and it was hard to set down. Brendon simply talks about his travels. His travels with his friends, family, dad, solo and so on. He chats along and drops a tip here and there frequently. The author is really opinionated, and he declared that way ahead when he introduced the book. He sometimes trash talks about travel and sometimes about his friends. He’s so tacky that you could get offended quite easily even if its not directed to you.
There might be sections in the book that I may not relate to as a middle class brown girl, but the fact that there is a common love for travel and finding the means to fulfill this desire goes to shows how a lot of us are a lot alike.
It's all one big Journey of laughter and I loved it!
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