Join a book club that is reading Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail!
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone.
Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone.
Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.
BUY THE BOOK
These clubs recently read this book...
Community Reviews
Really enjoyed this one! Strayed's writing is excellent and really kept me engrossed in her story and connected to her hardships and her triumphs. Glad I read it at this age, though I'd still recommend it to anyone.
I only finished this book because it was my "bathroom book." Easy to read in small doses, and not compelling enough to have to keep reading. She expresses herself very well, but I couldn't relate to her at all. What I really learned from reading it is that I don't want to waste time watching the movie.
I was about her age when my mother got cancer the first time (my mother's went into remission for about 10 years), and I also spent plenty of time going to hospitals and waiting on my mom during chemo bouts. Nope, never had the urge to shoot heroin, never cheated on my fiancé, and certainly wouldn't have saved money by shooting my horse in the head a few times instead of calling a vet when I had enough money to buy REI camping gear. Granted, I had a wonderful dad, which she didn't, but it was hard for me to relate to her. She was amazingly unprepared for her undertaking, and extremely self-absorbed.
I was about her age when my mother got cancer the first time (my mother's went into remission for about 10 years), and I also spent plenty of time going to hospitals and waiting on my mom during chemo bouts. Nope, never had the urge to shoot heroin, never cheated on my fiancé, and certainly wouldn't have saved money by shooting my horse in the head a few times instead of calling a vet when I had enough money to buy REI camping gear. Granted, I had a wonderful dad, which she didn't, but it was hard for me to relate to her. She was amazingly unprepared for her undertaking, and extremely self-absorbed.
A fast-paced, engaging read about a woman who forsakes normalcy for the wildness of the Pacific Crest Trail. . .and lives to tell about it. This book never ceased, much like Cheryl's journey from Mojave, California, to the Bridge of the Gods in Oregon. Relentlessly, it and she moved onward. It was also pock-marked with moments of poignancy and jabs of truth, though they were spread out enough to prevent an innate sort of preachiness one comes to expect from books about grief, loss, and unusual methods of healing -- it's the classic "I-did-this-so-I-know-best" problem that this book manages to steer clear from. There is a lesson for Cheryl and maybe for us, but if there is a lesson for us she is not prescribing it.
My main complaint from this book was how idiotic Cheryl frequently was. She packed her backpack with so much crap it was over half her weight. She didn't do a trial run. She didn't plan for cushions. Now, I understand that when doing something as a novice, you're bound to do most of it wrong. I get that. But she just felt so astonishingly dumb, sometimes. As the book was starting, I was thinking about what I would do if I was on that trail. I was thinking about how it would get lonely, with just the guidebook to read, but that maybe it would be a good experience to go for several weeks without eyes touching print. Mostly, I thought about how heavy and unnecessary books would be on a backpacking trip. And she brought five. FIVE. This irritating ignorance was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she lived (a fact not shared with the unfortunate subject of Into the Wild), but these kinds of stories bother me deeply because it gives people this idea that they, too, can throw themselves, unprepared, into highly dangerous situations and come out of it, not only alive but with the makings of an award-winning novel. Just no. I've grown up in a place where these sorts of things happen all too often, the outcome tragic yet expected, because the owner of the untimely obituary simply didn't know enough about the situation he or she was getting into. One redeeming quality was that Cheryl was at least aware of her overwhelming ineptitude and was humbled by it. I don't think I can say the same for Alex Supertramp-Bullshit-Whatever-Hippy-Name-He-Came-Up-With.
Would I recommend this? Yes. Would I recommend it with the grain of salt that I found the narrator to be occasionally annoying? Yes. Will I read it again? Maybe someday. But for right now, I think I'll enjoy my nice short walk to work tomorrow morning and revel in the fact that even though it is bordered by a gorgeous mountain and beautiful pines, it is less than a mile.
My main complaint from this book was how idiotic Cheryl frequently was. She packed her backpack with so much crap it was over half her weight. She didn't do a trial run. She didn't plan for cushions. Now, I understand that when doing something as a novice, you're bound to do most of it wrong. I get that. But she just felt so astonishingly dumb, sometimes. As the book was starting, I was thinking about what I would do if I was on that trail. I was thinking about how it would get lonely, with just the guidebook to read, but that maybe it would be a good experience to go for several weeks without eyes touching print. Mostly, I thought about how heavy and unnecessary books would be on a backpacking trip. And she brought five. FIVE. This irritating ignorance was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she lived (a fact not shared with the unfortunate subject of Into the Wild), but these kinds of stories bother me deeply because it gives people this idea that they, too, can throw themselves, unprepared, into highly dangerous situations and come out of it, not only alive but with the makings of an award-winning novel. Just no. I've grown up in a place where these sorts of things happen all too often, the outcome tragic yet expected, because the owner of the untimely obituary simply didn't know enough about the situation he or she was getting into. One redeeming quality was that Cheryl was at least aware of her overwhelming ineptitude and was humbled by it. I don't think I can say the same for Alex Supertramp-Bullshit-Whatever-Hippy-Name-He-Came-Up-With.
Would I recommend this? Yes. Would I recommend it with the grain of salt that I found the narrator to be occasionally annoying? Yes. Will I read it again? Maybe someday. But for right now, I think I'll enjoy my nice short walk to work tomorrow morning and revel in the fact that even though it is bordered by a gorgeous mountain and beautiful pines, it is less than a mile.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.