With the title, Amazon Woman, I had expected a solo expedition down the Amazon. It's true that Ms. Gaetcher is the first woman and only woman, at this time, to kayak the entire length of the Amazon River. Additionally only a handful of people have ever done this. Her trip added 2 more besides herself - her long time boyfriend and a driven wealthy British fellow who learned kayaking just to undergo the trip as a personal challenge. This is almost a study of a challenging and dangerous trip where the participants regularly clash and to me a study of what not to do. The main drive besides the love of kayaking was the identification of kayaking the entire length of the Amazon River as something that only a few people have ever done, and they wanted to get into the record books. This was worth risking their lives. Although there were times they were alone, for the most part the Amazon River, and the river chosen as the originator of the Amazon, is well populated although natives and travelers alike are very fearful of each other. The local politics, especially in Peru, were interesting as I had not heard of the group, the Shining Path, before. Ms. Gaetcher shows a great understanding of the challenges the native people face with problems with the authorities and the Shining Path's brutal actions. The group also had support boats from time to time although there were certainly reliability issues no matter who was providing that support. Although this wasn't a reality show since a private individual was funding the trip, this sort of has the feel of a reality show where there is only one voice - the author's. My rating is 3 stars for there were parts I found interesting but there was also a lot of what I perceived as rambling around and repeating information. My copy is an advanced reading copy so perhaps that got cleaned up.