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.
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Community Reviews
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.
Stray: to wander from the proper path, to deviate from the direct course, to be lost, to become wild, to be without a mother or father, to be without a home, to move about aimlessly in search of something, to diverge or digress. --Cheryl Strayed
Some people deal with grief by taking up a new hobby. Others hike the Pacific Crest Trail alone and almost entirely on foot. With a huge backpack. And absolutely no idea what they're doing. Following the death of her mother and the end of her marriage, Cheryl Strayed decided to do just that.
I absolutely devoured this fascinating story of bravery and determination and self-discovery. The book beautifully intertwines details of Cheryl's 1100 mile trek along the west coast of the US from California to Oregon with stories of her past and what had brought her to this trip. Her writing is so descriptive and deeply personal that I felt like I was right there with her, dehydrated with missing toenails and make-shift booties, trying to process life without the family that fell apart following her mother's passing. Make no mistake; Cheryl certainly made more than one questionable/bad decision along the way. I'm not an outdoors-y type, so it didn't bother me, but I can see where it might be annoying to some. One thing that struck me was the unbridled kindness and community that Cheryl encountered on her journey. Fellow trail hikers, drivers, townspeople. The friends she made unexpectedly on that hike were instrumental in the growth she experienced
I felt simultaneously sad and energized when I turned the last page of this book. Maybe I'll go for a walk...
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