Confession: my own, not-yet-finished memoir starts with me on my way to Walt Disney World, wracked with sobs, well on my way to a nervous breakdown. So the subtitle of Mousetrapped, Catherine Ryan Howard’s book about the 18 months she spent working at a Disney hotel, intrigued me. “…What could possibly go wrong in the happiest place on earth?” it asks. And what I loved about this great memoir is that it tells. It’s not all sunshine and Disney ears and firework displays (although there’s plenty of that, too) - we hear the real story of Ryan Howard’s time in Disney World, complete with loneliness, transport problems and financial challenges. It’s funny, educational, inspiring and the chapter about space shuttle launches made me cry. (If you knew how little interest I have in space travel, you’d know what an achievement that was.) I challenge anyone who reads it to not want to hop on the next flight to Florida.
