About the Book
With nothing but her backpack and an open-ended ticket, Torontonian Aly Coy spends five years travelling Western Europe. She is faced with a decision: to stay in a tumultuous relationship homesteading in The Spanish Pyrenees, or go back to a life she had given up as a young professional in Toronto. She attempts to live off-the-grid but finds herself planning an escape from an emotionally and verbally abusive partner.
The reader travels in time and space where Aly has little-to-no money, works in tourism, learns how to garden, lives on a commune, dumpster dives, discovers herbal medicine, and falls for all the wrong men and women. In her heartfelt travel memoir, unpacked, Aly Coy goes into raw detail about her sexually charged, sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, life abroad.
"I work through trauma by writing and sharing stories with others who have similar experiences," Aly Coy says. "I was lost, looking for a different way of life and my partner Josef seemed to have all the answers...There are many dark moments in the book but I also found humour in it all."
unpacked: a memoir of checked baggage strips layers of emotional turmoil while Aly Coy hostel hops, books flights, and misses trains. Aly Coy is a herbalist, small business owner of Barefoot Daughter: botanical body care, and author of her debut memoir, unpacked. She has three European travel guides published on unanchor.com, and over a dozen articles published in The Dalhousie Gazette while she acted as arts and culture editor. She studied English Literature at Dalhousie University, True to Life: Writing Your Own Story at Ryerson University, and at the Creative Writing School at Humber College, and continues to write on her blog Barefoot Daughter.
To order Aly Coy's botanical body care or find out more info on unpacked visit www.barefootdaughter.com
Review :
"Aly Coy has gone where many would like to go - if they had the courage. Unpacked describes her wild, rollicking, five-year post-university adventures in Europe, much of it off the grid and teeming with unsuitable or eccentric characters and bizarre situations. How she manages to rid herself of unwanted baggage and find her way back home a wiser self makes for a coming of age memoir so deeply honest we are forced to cheer for our heroine all the way. Unpacked is a great read - sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious, but always entertaining."
-Olive Senior, prizewinning author of The Pain Tree.
"In beautiful and moving prose, Aly Coy's memoir never flinches from authenticity. Her story is bold, courageous and a testament to her resilience and determination to not only survive but thrive -- an inspiration to us all."
-Wendy Judith Cutler, author, teacher, feminist, Salt Spring Island
"An engaging memoir that took me along on a wild ride. Sensory details make the stories come alive, with both menacing characters and angels along the way. Aly Coy dives deeply into this period of time in her life, introspective, honest and vulnerable. This is ultimately a story of healing and grace. If ever you have felt lost and confused along the way, take heart! You are not alone."
-Marie Maccagno, award winning author, writing coach and retreat facilitator.
"Rarely have I come across a book that so completely captivated me in under a page that it brings me to a world so rich I can smell it emanating from the bookbinding and feel its wind on the back of my head. This is such a book.
-Innominate"
"Anyone who has ever longed for (or has had) a backpacking adventure, will love reading Aly Coy's candid, insightful, and often funny memoir. Aly's post-university trip to Europe becomes a precarious, five-year journey: from the idle beaches of Greece to working in a druggy Amsterdam hostel, and eventually lost in life and love in the wilds of the Pyrenees. Part travelogue, part coming of age story, Unpacked is a delightful, engrossing read." -Beverley Cooper, award winning playwright.
"Unpacked is a delightfully heartfelt book full of raw, uncensored emotion and rare honesty. In it, author Aly Coy, quickly becomes something of a friend who shares her deepest thoughts and feelings, that person who helps you look deep into the reflections of your own life with the same clarity she shares in the pages of her exceptional book. Her words pulled me through the pages as I sought to discover the exciting highs and lows of the mysterious and unusual places her adventures took her next. I highly recommend this fascinating and personal book to anyone."
-Michelle Schoffro Cook, International best-selling & 21-time published author, whose works include: FOOD FIX, THE CULTURED COOK & BE YOUR OWN HERBALIST
"Unpacked brings you back to a place of longing, adventure and the overwhelming nature of life's big choices. Choices that sometimes feel small but lead to great changes in everything. Aly Coy takes you along her youthful travels full of laughs, tears and triumphs. A wonderfully well written story anyone relate to."
-Molly Murphy, co-author of The Mudgirls Manifesto
