Book Review: “Misspelled Paradise” by Bryanna Plog

I volunteered to review “Misspelled Paradise” hoping it would help me prepare for a trip to Central America.  It did provide me some insights to the culture in that part of our hemisphere, but not as much as I hoped.  This was not the fault of the book or the author.  I learned that some of the assumptions I had made were incorrect about Central and South America being the same.

This is not your average travel guide, in fact it is not a travel guide at all, and it is the experiences of the author.  Bryanna Plog lived and in Columbia and taught English as a volunteer teacher for a year.  You get to experience her year from the urban feel of Bogota to the small island where she taught in Santa Anna.  She explored all the other area of Colombia including the desert of the Guaijira peninsula, the jungles of the Amazon and the rainforest of Southern Colombia.

You get to understand the sense of her frustration as the job she went to do, to teach English, is made near to impossible by a flawed and barely functioning school system.

Bryanna shows genuine affection for her students and the people of Santa Ana, the island where she lived and volunteered.

I recommend this book.  The story kept me engaged and reading. It is an enjoyable read, not too deep, and just funny enough that you want to see what is next.

Disclosure: A free copy of this book was given to a volunteer with the expectation that a fair and honest review would be written for it.