Hello friends, happy Wednesday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m going to be posting my review of Marcello Di Cintio’s book Driven.

This was nominated for the 2022 Canada Reads longlist.

Driven by: Marcello Di Cintio: This book is the true stories from multiple taxi drivers across Canada and how they got to be in the taxi business. This wasn’t what the reader expected this book to be, but it ended up being better than the expectation. It’s very common in Western culture to hear the stereotypical story that cabbies who have immigrated to the country are well respected doctors/lawyers, etc. etc. in their country but those skills aren’t recognized so instead they drive a cab. This book really flipped that narrative on its head and journalist, Di Cintio, actually took the time to sit with real cab drivers across the country, Canada, and learn their stories. This ended up being a really thought provoking book in the sense that no one ever really thinks to understand and see where or why people come to a new country. Reading these cabbies stories was so fascinating because even though they all ended up doing the same thing, they all had different reasons for getting into the business. The reader enjoyed the stories, Di Cintio has a really easy way to his storytelling that captivates his audience leaving them wanting to read more. Although, there were moments through some of the stories where it felt like he added too much or irrelevant information that really dragged and kinda lost and took the reader out of the story. What was really well done was that this felt like it covered a wide demographic range in terms of representation. He talked to immigrants from not only India, but Russia, Czech, and Iraq to name a few; he talked to women drivers, and to a group of Indigenous women with their own ride share program. Each of them all with an intriguing and engrossing story to tell that was worth reading.