The World Is My Mirror
One Woman’s Global Journey to Reinvention
A story of intentional personal growth, The World Is My Mirror records world travels and other events that became foundational to its author’s flourishing.
Riza Rasco’s evocative memoir The World Is My Mirror is about lessons learned from years spent traveling the world.
Rasco grew up in the Philippines, though her mother encouraged her to pursue a career elsewhere. She went to the United Kingdom first and to the United States later. Her mother’s death triggered her depression, though. She began to travel more widely, aiming to visit every country in the world in pursuit of adventure, change, and growth: “I wished for belonging—for a community I could grow with and grow old with, one I could give to and stand beside.”
Its three-art organization epochal, the book focuses on topics including infertility and divorce, Rasco’s travels, and her decision to found two organizations dedicated to building communities in Africa and the Philippines. Travel itself is held up as a mirror, enabling Rasco to see herself better. However, this metaphor is sometimes strained in service of supporting metaphors: Lessons learned are recovered shards of the mirror; individual countries and people are called reflections.
Ultimately, Rasco’s travels themselves are not the point of the story, which is introspective and about personal growth. Its nonlinear timeline is disorderly, with the book jumping, for instance, from an event in the months following her mother’s death to one in the more distant past, and then to one set decades later. Elsewhere, the book expounds upon Rasco’s failing marriage to her second husband, but it doesn’t say when the divorce mentioned in the early chapters happened. Themes, rather than dates, drive the book’s momentum.
More precise are the book’s sensory details, as where it captures the sound of singing birds, the sight of wildflowers, and the sensation of flower petals under Rasco’s fingers. Each place mentioned is fleshed out well, as are the people who influenced Rasco’s growth, whether they were part of her life long-term or if she only knew them for a few days, as with the Matsés people in the Peruvian Amazon and Eldina, her tour guide in Srebrenica. As it works toward Rasco’s return to the Philippines, the book proffers a clear sense of personal satisfaction, though also including a last, explicit definition of the world as her mirror: “What began as a quest to see the world became an invitation to see myself more clearly.”
The World Is My Mirror is an inspiring memoir about the transformative potential of world travels.
Reviewed by
Carolina Ciucci
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
