Yet another book about the Camino? After one that kind of sucked and another one that was totally shitty, and yet a third one that was pretty awesome, I wondered what this one would be like:

Funny, but…

The story: British travel writer TM gets a donkey and takes him around the Camino from Southern France through Northern Spain, all the way to Santiago de Compostela.

This book is both funny and truthful. TM doesn’t miss a chance to crack a joke, and he often finds the right words. In fact, I liked the following observation so much that I even wrote it out:

“Hell is other people, said Jean-Paul Sartre, clearly a man with little experience of solo camping.”

Well put.

Another noteworthy thing is that TM actually takes some time to introduce the historical background of the Camino. I appreciated that a lot. And I found his love story with the donkey very touching, especially in the end.

So far so good. But here’s what’s wrong with this book: it is just too long. Maybe the editor slept, or he was too much in love with TM’s writing, but I think they should have made the book leaner and more focused. It’s not about the total page count (328), but more about the focus. Sometimes I noticed that I even felt tempted to skip a few pages.

All in all, I think that this one had the potential to be great. But it would have needed better editing.

A 6/10.