Lesley Hazleton's book "Confessions of a Fast Woman" is a thought-provoking journey into the mind of a socially conscious gear-head. She raises questions publicly that anyone with a passion for cars should have asked themselves. Her descriptions of speed and adrenaline grab the reader's attention for the rest of the book. I believe that the breaking of gender roles is only of small importance to this work, the book would have been just as profound if a man wrote it. What distinguishes this book from other speed-reading is the level at which she questions and analyzes her addiction to the internal combustion engine. The control and power issues she attacks are something that nearly all drivers have felt, but rarely discuss.

I got this book from my local library and soon decided it MUST be added to my collection. A great reference book, "Everything Women Always Wanted to Know about Cars..." speaks to women plainly and frankly without making us seem "stupid" or "girlie". There are pictures and diagrams of under the hood shots showing what the parts are called and where they usually reside. The author tackles the area of car buying and how salesmen relate to female buyers, what tricks they use, how society in general feels about women who drive. There are quotes from real women about how they feel about and in their cars, what cars they like the most, what a car represents to them, how cars aren't just for guys anymore! Some women name their cars and love to joyride; some women take on mechanical areas with ease and great interest. Women tell it like it is on everything from what a car says about its driver to how to get men to take you seriously when buying, selling, dealing with mechanics etc. This book covers just about everything you need to know (hence the accurate title!) as a woman and a driver. It answers the questions you just felt too insecure to ask your father, brother or boyfriend about cars. The colors and organization are attractive but not "too feminine" and the author presents not only a woman's perspective of the automotive world, but lots of technical terms and information as well. You are going to understand cars and be able to hold your own in conversations about cars after you read this book! I have searched far and wide for a book such as this and it's a one of a kind find, an absolute GEM!

Lesley Hazleton writes some very thought provoking ideas about feeling bad -- some seemed insightful but with others I had my doubts. She goes into how the unrealistic standards of happiness our culture sets for us affect us. When we feel bad as we inevitably do sometimes we feel even worse because we feel there is something wrong with us. Oftentimes people won't let themselves feel bad and have this desperate frantic desire to get away from their bad feelings. She then talks about how feeling bad can be necessary to a healthy life because we need time to mourn lost relationships and ideals. She describes it better than I can.

I have trouble, however, with her ideas that depressed people have a better view of reality than others. She writes that depressed people are more in touch with the harsh realities of life. She dismisses the cognitive psychologists who talk of cognitive distortions common in depression. My own experience leads me to think that depressed people evaluate their chances of achieving goals and being happy more pessimistically than objectively. They are not looking at harsh reality but reality through very negative lenses. Sometimes happy people seem like that they avoid and negative thoughts or situations but other times they seem more accepting of their situation and can look at their problems without getting hopeless about their difficulties.

Hazleton's book is nonetheless very worthwhile reading. The reader will be challenged to question their own views often and will be given very interesting perspectives on their bad feelings.

Remarkable in its sanity, the book normalizes a common human feeling, depression. The author takes funny potshots at popular writers of psycho-babble, and is immensely readable. As well, BOY, can she write! It's a beauty to read simply for her use of language, much less the relief at what she has to say.

There's nothing like a little intellectual arrogance from across the pond to get under my skin. What's been highly acclaimed by others as an introspective journey into Ms. Hazleton's self is instead a rambling stream of (un)consiousness that's so chock full of errors that it just adds up to one big irritation.

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but when a person who is an automotive journalist, private pilot, environmentalist, car enthusiast, and supposed "keen observer of human nature" sets forth so many incorrect or just plain goofy interpretations of events that even I pick up on them, I wonder how she's gotten the gigs she has. Let alone if she deserves them.

Here's a quick example:

To press home a point, she says "As Rambo said, 'I'll be back'". Sorry, Arnold as The Terminator said that. This from the keen observer of our woeful American popular culture.

As she passes the aviation boneyard in Arizona, she's suprised by the "lack of rust" on the aircraft. Being aluminum, they don't rust very often. Remember, she's an auto journalist, enthusiast, and private pilot.

The list goes on, but you get the idea.

The irony is that in decrying the very inventions she herself can't seem to live without and in having, at best, a shaky command of the facts, her attempt to scale a flagpole that rises above the teeming masses like me to point out our ignorance just gives us all a better view of her backside.

Driving to Detroit is about automobiles to about the same extent as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repairing is about motorcycles. Driving to Detroit is about America. It is a deeply penetrating, highly compelling, extremely entertaining analysis of our culture. People who like Barbara Kingsolver's fiction or William Least Heat Moon's travel journalism will love this book. It belongs in the travel and sociology sections of bookstores, not hidden among auto-repair manuals in the transportation section which is where I always finally find it when I want copies for nieces and nephews and other friends.

Ms. Hazelton writes with honesty and elegance. She exposes the strength and beauty of our special kind of aggressiveness in America, but she also exposes its ugly side -- with delicacy and compassion. She is a consumate journalist, and a thoroughly competent psychologist. She misses nothing, but has a remarkable flare for knowing how much to reveal and in what kind of time frame. I find that subtle insights created by her apparently innocent descriptions of people and events are still seeping through the layers of my awareness, bursting into consciousness and amazing me at the oddest times.

Unfortunately, books like this one don't fit into the kinds of simplistic niches that make marketing easy. Driving to Detroit is about psychology, and sociology, and culture, and education; and human decency, and conflict, and generosity and opportunism; and automobiles.

In chronicling her far off-the-beaten-path 13,000 mile journey from Seattle to Detroit, Ms. Hazleton both celebrates and skewers the American love affair with the automobile.