NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW:

"Another Gen X traveler, equally astute but far lighter-hearted, is the Texan Stephanie Elizondo Griest. As a teenager, Griest already knew she 'had to get the hell out of Corpus Christi,' so she took the advice of a CNN correspondent she met at a journalism conference and learned Russian. AROUND THE BLOC: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana (Villard, paper, $13.95) is the often hilarious tale of this female Candide's voyage through Communist and formerly Communist countries: in Moscow as a student during the 1990's, later in Beijing as a journalist under the Luce Scholars program and finally in Cuba as a clandestine tourist.

"Griest is a charming guide, easily making friends and blending into the local scene -- so effectively that she even finds herself assuming some of her new companions' less appealing characteristics, as she herself readily admits. Her stint as an editor at China Daily, a newsmagazine that is the official English mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, is typical. At first excited by this 'prime opportunity to experience censorship firsthand and observe a state propaganda machine at its source,' she is outraged by her colleagues' cynicism and obstructionism. But after a year on the job, she realizes that she has become as obstructionist as they are.

"Griest provides an eye-opening glimpse of the reality behind American headlines that can themselves be propagandistic. Her description of Havana at the height of the Elian Gonzalez hysteria offers a bizarre, through-the-looking-glass reflection of the furor, and her discussion of Muscovites' common fears and worries shows that the new post-Communist 'democracy' is as shaky as the old system, perhaps even more so. 'Instead of worrying about the K.G.B. knocking on their door at midnight, Russians now feared huligani kicking it down or -- if they were biznesmeni -- Mafiozi gunning it down.'

"Around the Bloc is not only superb travel writing, it is also a beautifully written story of self-discovery. As a college student, Griest was 'a militant-vegetarian-Chicana-feminist,' but in Moscow she makes little headway against the 'primped and preened' Russian women. 'Moscow felt a lot like Dallas,' she observes. 'No respectable woman would dare run down to the neighborhood kiosk without base, concealer, blush, eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara and lipstick.' Her vegetarianism ends in Beijing, where shish-kebabed scorpions and snake blood turn up on the menu. And her Chicana pride turns to humiliation in Havana when her Spanish won't sustain even the most basic conversation.

"Although it's full of serious reporting, Around the Bloc is a delightful book, imbued with the high spirits, good will and openness of youth -- and strangely reminiscent of that travel classic about the Jazz Age, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.'' -- Brooke Allen

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW (named BEST BOOK of 2004):

"At an early age, first-time memoirist Stephanie Elizondo Griest knew she wanted to hightail it out of her hometown, Corpus Christi, Texas. Fortunately for her, she also decided to become a journalist. In high school, she heeded the advice of a CNN correspondent to learn Russian. Thus were born her obsessions with Marxist ideology and Communist bloc countries -- their culture, their politics, their leaders-gone-psychotic -- and what it all means to her personally. A spunky storyteller, Griest has written an extremely readable memoir that educates as well as entertains."

WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD:

"As with truly successful travel writing, Around the Bloc suggests that our best journeys often lead to discoveries within ourselves."
-- Georgia Jones-Davis

TEXAS MONTHLY MAGAZINE:

"Twenty-four-year-olds should not write memoirs, but Stephanie Elizondo Griest earns a conditional exception with her charmingly self-effacing memoir Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana (Villard). Following a year of study in Moscow and a year as a journalist in Beijing (the Havana stay, just two weeks in length, is a bit of a bait and switch), the self-proclaimed "militant vegetarian Chicana feminist" from Corpus Christi found her expectations blown up and her American veneer melted down. Around the Bloc reads funny and sad with equal frequency, and Griest's engaging point of view has the earmarks of a journalistic star in the wings." -- Mike Shea

CONDE NAST TRAVELER:

"Plucky young Texas journalist eager to see the world decides to make Communist countries (current and otherwise) her terrain. Adventures ensue: vodka-soaked parties in Moscow, a forbidden gay bar in Beijing, rumba sessions in Havana. It's a zesty expedition through three wildly different cultures, each in strikingly similar predicaments."

HOUSTON CHRONICLE & ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/books/reviews/2480270

"Bump into Stephanie Elizondo Griest in Whole Foods and it would be easy to conclude that she is who she appears to be: a 20-ish hippie chick, living in communal vegetarian splendor. What might escape your notice is that she's a Russian-speaking Phi Beta Kappa journalist who has compiled an impressive memoir of her journey through three lands whose political landscape was, and continues to be, dominated by a history of communist rule.... Therein lies the charm of the story: a smart, daring, accomplished young single woman ready to thoughtfully explore other countries and draw her own independent conclusions." -- Steven E. Alford

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY:

"When Griest was a high school senior in Texas, a CNN correspondent told her that if she wanted a globe-hopping career like his, she should learn Russian. Four years later, she went to Moscow and spent a semester at a linguistic institute, beginning a four-year period of travel (1996–2000) to 12 nations, including much of the former Soviet bloc and Communist China and Cuba. Readers will quickly intuit just how little of Griest’s adventures made it into this account, as a two-month Central Asian trek gets a single sentence and Eastern Europe falls completely by the wayside. But there’s little opportunity to regret what’s missing because of the captivating stories that Griest does choose to tell. From the sight of an old woman stealing canned goods from a shopper who’d passed out in a Moscow grocery to the aggressive banter of Havana black marketers, Griest has a journalist’s eye for compelling detail. Her youthful romantic attraction to “the Revolution” is slightly less attractive, at times treating the largely defeated Communist movement as almost exotic, and naïve daydreams about matters like the “damn good loving” she might find from angst-ridden Beijing men can occasionally induce winces. But she doesn’t flinch from depicting the brutal effects of authoritarianism and economic decline, or how her experiences hastened her political and emotional maturity. Though still raw in places, Griest’s writing shows great promise; she may wind up joining Tom Bissell in the vanguard of a new generation of travel writers."

PW Forecast: Author interviews, an NPR campaign and marketing to college students could jump-start sales of this low-priced trade paperback.

TEXAS OBSERVER:
http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1735

"As someone who thinks that nirvana is a 10-hour Brazilian bus ride, I can’t help but love this book. Griest is a chatty, intrepid traveler who has woven her own coming-of-age story against the backdrop of three world capitals and the drama of three complex societies. She has also written a classic, profoundly American story of loss of innocence — "Never before had I been held accountable for what I represented." -- Barbara Belejack

AUSTIN CHRONICLE:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-03-26/books_readings.html

"Armchair travelers have rarely had it so good as they do with Texas native Griest's memoir of her jaunt from Austin to Moscow to Beijing to Havana and beyond, which reads like one part informative history lesson on the People's Revolutionary struggle and one part Hope 'n' Crosby road movie.... Griest writes with an eye toward the common experience, and does it in an immensely entertaining fashion. There's none of the musty feeling of a lecture on Communist history in her book – if anything, it feels like a long, long note from a friend on the road who just happens to know a whole lot about Marx, Engels, and Red all-stars. Her four-year journey across the crimson map is nearly as much fun to read as it must have been to undertake: smart, sassy, and informed. And the reader, of course, doesn't have to worry about the Russian Mafia." -- Marc Savlov

SAN ANTONIO CURRENT:

"....Griest has for more than a year attracted the attention of elders in Texas writing circles. The consensus seems to be that she will someday be A Force To Reckon With, a writer to whom Texans will have to answer, perhaps a counterpoint to the right-wing Texan author and think-tanker, Michael Lind." -- Dick Reavis

BUST:

"....despite its political-sounding premise, the book reads more like letters home from an adventurous friend than a cold social analysis. We learn as much about Griest's relationships with the people she meets as we do about their experiences with communism. Her ability to seamlessly combine description and analysis allows her to present a huge amount of historical and factual information without losing your attention... Like any good traveler, she freely admits to what anyone who has ever spent time far from home eventually realizes -- the more you learn about far-flung places, the more you really learn about home." -- Kate Daloz

FREE WILLIAMSBURG.COM:
http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/may_2004/around-the-bloc.html

"It is noteworthy that the writing improves with the sex; with the idealistic gloss a bit tarnished. I guess naiveté works best when it's over." -- J. Stefan-Cole