Book Review: The Sex Lives of Cannibals

When working on our list of Ten Funny Travel Books and Ten Funny Travel Movies (life was crazy and we knew we needed some funny books and movies to some joy into our daily life), The Sex Lives of Cannibals was recommended several times and you just can’t ignore a title like that. (Though, sorry to tell you, there isn’t much about sex and they’re not really cannibals, so if you’re looking for that, this is not the book for you…you might also need some help.)

J. Maarten Troost is living a pretty standard (stressed, unimpassioned, blah) life in Washington, D.C. when his girlfriend is offered a job on Tarawa, Kiribati–an island in the Pacific Ocean. They both are up for some adventure (and he’s looking for some time to focus on writing his book–like all writers), so they decide to take the plunge and move to an extremely remote island seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Sounds amazing, right?

As Troost soon discovers, it doesn’t sound amazing when everyone on the island seems to love The Macarena and play it over and over and over and over and over and over again. The couple soon discover they’ve taken this adventure thing to the extreme and life on the island isn’t easy–electricity is unreliable, food options are limited, and let’s just say the islander approach to life is…different. Through humorous vignettes about the two years they spend on the island (sometimes with more detail than I probably needed to know), Troost gives us an inside look at what it really means to give up everything you know–and while it isn’t always pretty, it definitely can be amusing.

This book is funny (although I think my expectations might have been too high) and does provide some interesting revelations about life on a remote island, but I had a hard time getting past his condescending judgment of the locals and their way of life. There’s a way to be humorous and explore differences without assuming you’re superior.

But, it was funny and you do learn something interesting things about life on Kiribati, so if you’re looking for that, I do recommend it.