Friday, August 7, 2015

I.T. Geek to Farm Girl Freak: Leaving High Tech for Greener Pastures / S.A. Molteni


Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Memoir

Approximate word count: 14-15,000 words

Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: NO Smashwords: NO Paper: YES
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

S.A. Molteni is a retired systems engineer. She is also currently a hobby farmer, avid traveler and an author of several award-winning short stories. She lives on a small homestead with her husband and a menagerie of farm animals.”

For more, visit her blog or like her page on Facebook.

Description:

Have you ever wanted to ditch the nine-to-five job and move as far away as possible from the rat race?

Have you ever just wanted peace and quiet in a rural setting away from the sprawl of suburbia?

Have you found yourself daydreaming about pasture lands and farm animals on a daily basis?

That's exactly what the author found herself contemplating - more often than not - while working at a high tech job in Seattle.
With her husband 3,000 miles away in Florida and the passing of her father, she knew it was time to make some serious changes in her life. She was ready for an adventure, but little did she know what lay in store for her at the 'fixer upper' farmhouse she and her husband would soon own.

S.A. Molteni has spent over thirty years in the Information Technology field working for various Fortune 500 companies. During those years, she and her husband had always dreamed of living on a farm once they became retired from the rat race.

This collection of essays follows the author in her sometimes humorous transition from I.T. Geek to Farm Girl Freak and depicts the lessons that are learned along the way once farm animals become a large part of her life.”

Appraisal:

When I read a memoir I hope to learn or gain something to help in my own journey through life. That might be coming to a better understanding of a group of people much different than me. It could be getting a different perspective on experiences I share with the author (or even validation if we see comparable experiences in the same way). Sometimes it's inspiration. It could even turn into a bit of a how-to book, if the experiences chronicled are something you'd like to do.

As an I.T. Geek who wouldn't mind escaping the corporate rat race, I'd have loved it if I'd have found the last of these. (Even though a farm would be the absolute last place I'd seek refuge.) That wish was probably too much to hope for. (And to be fair, what is required to make the escape is fairly obvious, albeit, not easy to accomplish.) Instead what I gained from reading this short memoir was more generic and more applicable to the average potential reader as well.

The book is a collection of essays the author wrote about her experiences making the transition from I.T. Geek to Farm Girl Freak with the majority of the stories about adapting to her new life on the farm. At the end of most of these essays or stories the author tells the reader what the “life lesson learned” was for her. For example, one is “You never know what you are capable of until you try.” Really the lessons to be gleaned are two-fold. The generic lesson the author lists is the first, but I found that by combining her stories with my experiences, I could also find additional lessons of my own. Maybe you'll find the same.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

2 comments:

Candace Williams said...

This looks like a good read! (and I adore that cover)

moltenisa said...

Big Al and Pals - Thank you so much for reading and reviewing "I.T. Geek to Farm Girl Freak". I appreciate the unbiased critique and am glad that you enjoyed reading it.