If you haven’t guessed from the title, this book is chocked full of things that you SHOULDN’T do when you move to Mexico, as experienced by Jennifer who didn’t just move to Mexico once, but multiple times and with varying levels of success.

Her international adventures begin in 1994 when she moved from Canada to Monterrey to join the Mexican National Circus in Saltillo. Go ahead, roll your eyes, but we’ve all been young and foolish at least once in our lives. See, her cousin was dating a clown and well, it goes downhill from there.

On her second move to Mexico, she had a face-to-face encounter with the police in Guanajuato. In Spanglish negotiated her way out of a ticket with “No vas rapido. Yo tengo una plata. You tengo mi papeles. No problemo. Gracias. Adios Senor” and jumping back in her car leaving a perplexed representative of the law in the dust.

In some sort of karmic retribution, Jennifer’s Audi broke down outside of Leon and it took thousands of dollars and YEARS to get the vehicle fixed and returned to Canada.

On another occasion, Jennifer was saved by Jesus himself (well, his representative on earth Jesús anyway) from being hauled away to the slammer after a fender bender. In Cozumel, she met a hunky scuba diving instructor Raul which resulted in love and a near-drowning incident.

A Canadian custody issue meant she was detained at the U.S. border. Then years of legal travail in Canada ensued before she could return to Mexico, this time with a man from the Dominican Republic that she had met in Canada and their two toddlers. Of course, Interpol still had her name on the list and that caused some issues entering Mexico to retrieve her Audi.

When she tried to leave, well, there was a shake-down at the Mexican border and unnecessary delays at the Canadian border causing her to declare that it was the Worst. Road trip. Ever.

Then she moved to Mexico AGAIN! This time she was more prepared and the transition, while not exactly smooth, was successful.

I can honestly say that I am so glad to have not experienced even a quarter of the disasters that Jennifer experienced. But as they say, there’s a silver lining in every cloud.

So if you are looking for a bit of humor about moving to Mexico, then How to Not Run Away to Mexico is the book for you!