Robin Minietta unfalteringly reveals some of the most personal elements in her life. Her tales segue from what appear to be thinking out loud into the re-opening of wounds. Sometimes it's an uncomfortable read, particularly when she's describing the torment and bureaucracy involved in adopting her son.

Gweilo Moments is not a ground-breaking work, but it is heart-wrenchingly real. Expatriates who have felt uncomfortably foreign will find themselves nodding, chuckling and agreeing with the honest moments Minietta shares. The book is saturated with these encounters. She looks at the ways in which locals and expats find ways to deal with each other. Minietta takes pleasure in what others would see as a trial - from trying to buy paint stripper, to the agonising wait to hear if she will ever take a little boy home.

She induces just the right balance of laughs, gasps and tears, encouraging the reader to compare her tales to their own experiences.

In opening up perhaps the most trying and personal period of her life - approaching menopause, and the realisation that natural procreation isn't an option anymore - Minietta earns the reader's full attention and grips it until the last page. She didn't have to go and print her story, packed with details about doctor's appointments, overstepping red tape and taking an abused child into her home ... but she did.

Gweilo Moments encapsulates the little things in life that make you smile, and the bigger things in life that make you think. Here's to Minietta continuing on her path as an author, and the nuances she so lovingly weaves into the stories of her life.