Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

I recently finished Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. It is a book about a woman who hikes a trail on the west coast in hopes of finding herself. It is an autobiography written by Cheryl herself as she hikes. I think this book is a must read. It was inspiring and uplifting, in a way that only a book about a woman who has hit rock bottom and fights her way back up can. Although there are plenty of books about women who struggle with self identity and depression, Cheryl did a good job of making this one engaging and different. I happen to like the autobiography genre because I like that the story is about real peoples struggles. I like to read about the challenges and how they overcome them, even if the challenges that most autobiographies are written about are extreme and hard to imagine, I feel that I can easily take them in context and apply them to situations that may arise in my, or someone close to me's life. Cheryl made me feel like I was her friend and companion on the hike. I laughed when she laughed and cried when she cried. Although there were points in the journey when even I was bored with the walking, I felt that those points were necessary to make the journey feel real. She did a great job of pulling me back in after these lulls and I was just as engrossed as before. I found the miscellaneous characters that flutter in and out to be quirky and entertaining. At the end of the book I thought about them and wondered where they were now and how they were doing. She only gave us a fleeting view of them, but she also had just a fleeting view of them herself. She focused more on how they affected her and what she learned from them, rather than on actually developing the characters. I liked that even though it was a book all about the discovery of who Cheryl Strayed really is, she gave us an insight into other characters that she met along the way. She was descriptive enough to set the plot for me, enabling me to envision her beautiful and treacherous hike while at the same time not being sickened by the descriptive words of beauty. I found the plot easy to follow, although considering the plot is almost entirely about a woman hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, you would think that would be pretty straightforward; however, Cheryl found a way to entwine her trials and tribulations into the book while not making it confusing and jumpy. I would recommend this book to anyone going through a hard time in their life, but even for people that are not. It is a feel good book that makes you want to go strap a backpack on and take on the PCT today! I wanted to include some of the negative reviews that I found online. I found that most of them had to do with the actual hike, or the genre as a whole. Many people had written that all she did was complain through the book. I didn’t find this book to be whiny or self-centered. I liked the way that she was forced to focus on herself the entire time. I will say that she complained, a lot, about the hike and how hard it was but I believe that she was using that as a tool to show her readers how much of a journey it was. I think she whined to show that not only was she working through some very tough emotional stuff, she was doing it while working through some very tough physical stuff as well. I am not a hiker, so I have no insight into whether she portrayed hiking, as a sport, correctly so if you are a hiker and would like to shed some light here, feel free. The last complaint that I will talk about was the one of her lifestyle before the hike. I think that many people were cruel in the way that they bashed Cheryl’s lifestyle leading up to the hike. I think that she accurately portrayed a 25 something woman who has a pretty messed up life. I will agree that her choices were poor, but I think she handled it how she thought she could and I think that people who threw stones in the reviews about her life choices, sounded like they hadn’t really dealt with heartbreak and total life failure. There are different types of people in the world, those who make lemonade when life throws them lemons and people that throw the lemons away and chug a bottle of vodka. If you liked my post, visit my website at www.balancingemma.wordpress.com

Grief can lead us in many different directions. It can lead to self- reflection, a change in priorities, a stronger realization of one’s own mortality, and so on. It can lead people to try things or do things they never considered before. Such is the case with Wild, a true story of a woman shellshocked by grief who decides to take time to find herself by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild is a journey of discovery and growth. The author didn’t spend all her time alone hiking the trail, but she was alone for most of it, and she wasn’t as well- prepared, physically or otherwise, as a person should be. Her descriptions of places, people, the outdoors, the physical endurance, and other things help you feel like you are right there with her, experiencing the awe, the relief, the pain, and more. One of the things I like about this book is that it’s not a story about someone who has everything and decides to see what it’s like to rough it, to live life on the other side. I get tired of books like that; books that feature an individual from a privileged background who decides to find out how others live and survive. No, this is a book about an ordinary person. A person who grew up with little except for the family she cherished, only to have everything unravel, first with her father’s departure, then with her mother’s death, and then with the dissolution of her marriage. Her decision to hike the Pacific Crest Trail was based on the accumulation of grief, lack of self- discipline, and other factors. She does end up learning a few life lessons along they way and she does seem to have grown in the process, so the ending is mostly a happy one. Where Wild falls a little short is with the author’s somewhat one- track mind and naivete about people in general. As she makes her way from place to place and encounters different men, she immediately wants to comment on their physical looks. To be fair, the entire book is written like that, with adjectives and colorful descriptions every step of the way, so it could be that this is just an extension of the book’s overall writing style. Still, I got a little tired of it. I really don’t care if this man was good- looking and this other one was not. It had little to do with the experience. Dealing with grief can be difficult and until you have experienced significant loss, there is no way of knowing what you may do. Wild is a good read overall about a woman’s effort to find comfort and forgiveness in the rugged American west and while it does have a few shortcomings, it still makes for an enjoyable read and I’m looking forward now to watching the movie based on this writing.

WILD is a fearlessly told, wildly fantastic, and entertaining story. The author, Cheryl Strayed (not her birth name, but one she chose after a her divorce) exceeded any and all expectations I had when Wild arrived in my mailbox. This is a memoir, but reads like a novel. All human behavior, interaction, and communication, I think, is best understood via the narrative, in other words--a story. And so I am going to talk about this story as if it were fiction - in the language of the six fundamental elements of a story. Title. Perfect. To look at the spine is to see 'Cheryl Strayed WILD'. Which would induce me to pluck it off any shelf. [However, I think the cover would have been better with a snapshot of Cheryl, or a trail maker of the PCT; but I understand the choice of the boot.] Cheryl Strayed is a wild girl, as she says: "I was an experimentalist ... An artist. The kind of woman who said yes instead of no." (p. 54) That is a trail marker letting the reader know just what kind of journey you are about to get into. Plot. One of the best - Redemption of the human soul through the force of will, strength, and toughness. Briefly, Cheryl was born in 1968, white, female, attractive, intelligent, and in addition had the benefit of a college education. You could call her advantaged. But, big but, she was born into rural poverty and domestic violence and then her champion, advocate, and sole support - her mother - died suddenly of cancer when Cheryl was twenty-two. Cheryl, lost, descended into debauchery, seemingly bent on self- destruction via sex and drugs. Characterization. Not only did I quickly begin to root for Cheryl, I fell in love with her. She was/is the personification of my "perfect" woman. [I am aware, wistfully, that the person I am in love with is a fiction--a 26 year-old woman with the wisdom and wit of the same person 15 years later.] Not only was she white, young, attractive, intelligent, and funny; she was by her declaration: "--strong and responsible, clear-eyed and driven, ethical and good." (p. 57) [And] "I was a big fat idiot and I didn't know what the hell I was doing ..." (p.58) [Told you she was funny.] And it just keeps getting better, funnier; and yet in the next sentence she is as likely to bring tears to my eyes as to make me laugh out loud. Point of view. Her voice is perfect. I can hear her, see her! In all her joy and sadness and frustration, in other words, in all her humanity ... or femaleness. Cheryl blends the past with the present in the telling of her story masterfully. There is no confusion for the reader. Her wisdom and humor and reflection merge in ways that are really rare in writing. Setting. The Pacific Crest Trail, from the deserts of southern California, through the high Sierras and into the "Box of Rain" to the Bridge of the Gods on the Columbia River in Oregon, she describes it beautifully, as well as all the characters, camps, and towns along the trail. And most significantly for me--what it is like to hike alone, mile after mile after mile. [A thing I am very, very familiar with.] Theme. The power of the human spirit and the unequivocal interaction of the force of nature with that of man (woman) to combine to heal and restore a person to their true self. This is a rare book. I read a lot, and have never fallen for a writer and a voice and a story like I did for Cheryl Strayed and WILD.

I could say that Cheryl Strayed's memoir "Wild" is beautifully written, perfectly paced, vividly detailed and enlighteningly deep, but I would not be saying enough. Rarely have I read a book that is so right on so many levels as "Wild." And yet, this is true in spite of the fact that there seems to be almost nothing about her that I can relate to. In fact, Cheryl reveals things about herself that I usually would find repulsive, but instead I honor her for the strength to show us. I shouldn't like this book, but I do. In fact, I love this book, and Cheryl deserves the utmost praise for creating this work of art. When I think of what I want from a book, I realize that Wild has everything I could ever ask for. So many books disappoint on many levels, even if they entertain, provide useful information, reveal the depths of life or display beautiful sentences. I had resigned myself to accepting less and focusing on the good aspects of whatever I read. What I found most often was that something was missing. If a book had a compelling story, it would lack depth; if it had fleshed out characters, it would have a weak story; if it had beautiful writing, it had little meaning; if it were deep and meaningful, its writing was dreary and ponderous. When I chose to read Wild, I did so because it was apparently about a journey across the Pacific Crest Trail. That subject is interesting to me, and I wanted insight into what the experience might be like. I chose to read Strayed's memoir in spite of criticisms I had read saying it was too much about the author dealing with personal problems. All I hoped for was to find the book interesting and informative about the PCT, and it is that; that and much more. It is one of the most raw, poetic, insightful, meaningful and well written books I have ever read. I am in awe of Strayed's bold honesty and her profound discoveries about life. Her writing is impeccable to the end, revealing just the right details at a perfect pace that brings her experience to life in a way that is as deep and alive as her actual journey. As with her journey, her writing never takes a short cut because of weakness or laziness. She's given us everything here. I felt a connection to her experience without finding empathy for her choices. I could not relate to most of the things she did in her relationships because I often found that her choices and actions went against what I would do. But her blunt, yet lyrical, telling of her story led me to relax judgment and accept things as they were. In this way, the book became my own journey of discovery, leading me to conclusions similar to hers, and revealing something about what it means to be alive. When a book can do that for me, it is doing something very special. To those who may criticize Strayed for writing something other than what they wanted or for not doing things the way they would have, I say you are missing the heart of this book. Do not read this book for what you want it to be, but read it for what it is. If you can do that, you will discover a work of art that transcends mere story-telling, and you will know in your soul that you have experienced some part of Cheryl's journey with her and maybe discovered something about yourself, too.

I finally bought this book because I had seen the name topping the Non-Fiction Best Seller list for so long that I thought it would be a lovely evocative story of hiking and camping on the Pacific Coast Trail, burnishing the memories I have of the times in the very late 1940s and the 1950s when my late wife and I would be packed in to Kings Canyon National Park to spend a week of our vacation - first with friends and then much later with our children - hiking and camping, isolated, beside a lake or a stream in the High Sierras. Those memorable moments in the high mountains are indescribable. The pure air, the absolute silence, the immensity, the trees, the breathtaking brilliance of the canopy of stars at night, the aloneness. No phones. No papers, no schedule, no people - none - except your hiking and camping companions. Companionship around a campfire in the enfolding darkness before a night in your warm sleeping bag - and then a cold dawn, washing in cold, cold water, building the morning fire and the first cup of good hot coffee. Ah! I thought I might relive it all - or at least some delicious part of it - through Ms. Strayed's prose. But it was not to be. This book is a carefully designed literary event. Yes, Ms. Strayed tells us about her two plus months in 1995 hiking the Pacific Coast Trail from Mohave in the Sierras through the Cascades and finally to the Bridge of The Gods over the Columbia at Portland. It's an agonizing hike - her boots were new, never broken in and too small, her pack was way too heavy; she was a tenderfoot in every way - and if there is one consistent theme in this book it is how her feet - blistered, bleeding, bruised - hurt every hour of every day and night. She had absolutely no previous hiking or camping experience and she was hiking alone - foolhardy and an absolute no-no. She was lucky to have made the trip and live to tell about it. No, the hike is not the story; and having said that I'm not just sure what her story is if there is one. She was 22 when she made the hike and was or had been an insecure, live-for-the-moment girl, experimenting with drugs (heroin), men (many), marriage and life itself. Her home life had been unhappy and she had just experienced the tragic death of her mother at 50 from cancer as well as a new divorce from a husband she still loved (kind of). So there was every reason for her to go to the mountains to heal, to "find herself". That's not the story either, but it's certainly a big - if not the larger - part of it. Every few pages she careens off the trail of her hiking story to give us several more pages of flashback on her many problems in the life she had led, the problems that finally brought her to the hike. As a matter of fact there are more pages about her troubles than her hike; and she never really appreciates the beauty of where she was. Frankly I'm a bit tired of writers telling us what a tough time they had growing up and how they were redeemed - or redeemed themselves - one way or another - their theory being, I guess, that the greater the troubles the louder we cheer the redemption. All of us have troubles - very often big troubles - but we find redemption in many different ways - through courage, through our friends, our family, professional help or the Church, or through the simple application of wisdom and the benefit of experience - in ways other than by shaking out our troubles in the black and white of print before the reading public. (It's a kind of self hero worship.) But then, too, most of us are not writers; and that is what writers such as Ms. Strayed like to do. Which brings me to my problem with this book. Ms. Strayed made this trip in 1995; the book was published 17 years later - in 2012. But in her book she is telling us in minute-by-minute detail what happened during her long hours on the trail - or off it - and like it happened yesterday. For example, she will tell us exactly what she ate, alone one night in her cold tent in the rain, and what she thought about as she ate- her mother's suicide, her old boyfriend etc. There are long passages - pages and pages of them - of retrospective personal detail, more of them in fact than pages of the details of her actual hike. No one could have kept a journal with so much detail for so long, given the conditions of her hike. Much of her story - if not the majority of it - is therefore fiction based on the memories of what she did 17 years before she put pen to paper - fiction unfortunately dressed up as truth; but such is her privilege because she is first and foremost a writer. She was bookish. She would read, not write. (By my count she read or referred to 14 books, only a few of which she picked up on the way.) She wrote more about the books she was reading than the glorious sights that surrounded her. After the trip she made her living writing for the 17 years that intervened between the trip and this book; and a writer enjoys a wide canvas on which to inscribe his or her thoughts; and she used absolutely all of it So the book is both fiction and non-fiction and memoir - a mélange of all of the above. However, if you are going to read it, forget all this and read it for what it is - a literary event, neither fiction or non fiction, a book based on both truth and memory, written by an accomplished writer as a part of her work as a published author. Believe me, it's a long slog; and when, like Ms. Strayed, I made it to the Bridge of the Gods with her I had had it. I don't want to do it again.

This book got better and better the farther I got into it. Strayed is definitely a very good writer. I'm still puzzled about how she made it all the way to the end of the PCT if her feet were in as bad a condition as she described them--seems like they just would not have held up under the incredible stress, especially since the foot problems started almost at the beginning of the trip. Also, the sores she got from her backpack, and the fact that she just kept on rubbing the same sores raw every day, would seem to have gotten infected or something if they were as bad as she said. Maybe that "second skin" stuff that she used was really miraculous. I noticed that some reviewers who did not like this book were critical of Strayed for her personal problems and were even quite judgmental about her indiscretions and infidelities. Actually, these were the parts of the story that made her seem so human to me. If her story of how she grew up is true, then I think she's truly a person of amazing intestinal fortitude. Reading about how much she loved her mother and how devastated she was to lose her at such a young age (Strayed was 22 and her mother was only in her forties) made me personally feel kind of envious of such a close mother-daughter relationship, which is something my mother and I never quite accomplished. It brings into stark relief the many ways in which people hurt in life, whether from losing someone they love deeply or somehow never really having a comfortable relationship with someone they love but don't know how to really connect with. I hope this story is true. I hate to be such a skeptic, but because some people lately have published such phony memoirs, it makes it a little hard for me not to be skeptical of all memoirs now. Sad that it's that way. That said, this story is all perfectly believable, when you come right down to it, and by the end I was pretty much convinced that she was on the level, and I was really moved by her catharsis. I know that people really can and do recover from life's traumas through amazing and challenging experiences in nature. Part of me would really like to give this book five stars, but I'm holding back because a little part of me suspects that some of her physical maladies on the trail were somewhat exaggerated. Oh, and let me not forget what drove me absolutely crazy in the early part of the book, and that is why in God's name someone clearly as smart and capable as she was did not have sense enough to lighten her backpack, and why it took so long before one of the folks she met on the trail had sense enough to do that for her. This part just didn't make sense. Maybe that's why I can't give this book 5 stars. I read this book because it was the selection for the month in my book club. It was a really good read, and I'm glad I read it.

Sometimes I happen across a book that leaves a profound impression on me and this was one of them. I have hiked sections of the PCT as well as nearly all of the Colorado trail, a lot of it solo in a two month long quest. My quest was very different but there were amazing parallels. Wild was an inspirational and emotional read for me. This book has inspired me to expand my own trekking journal-not as a copy cat but as a pure inspiration to tell my own story of my exit and reentry into society which is profoundly different than hers. I was a much more experienced outdoors person then Cheryl Strayed when I did my trek but I was impressed by her ability to adapt and learn the skills of a long distance hiker through the school of hard knocks. When you are soloing in the wilderness a minor mishap can spiral into a life and death situation. The book does a good job illustrating this fact of life for solo wilderness adventures. I think at times she was on the brink and if she would've suffered an accident or worse than this quest could be viewed as a suicidal undertaking-much like Christopher McCandless' fate in John Krakauer's Into the Wild. I have wondered this about myself and the deeper motivations for my own solo wilderness undertaking. In reading about her experiences on the PCT, I remembered the exhaustion camps, navigating through waste deep snow, walking the dry sections in thirst, yelling at wild animals, and living off dehydrated food that was mailed to me on different legs of the trip. These were definite parallels that hit home. A hot meal, a shower, and a beer become luxuries when you leave the ordinary life we live where we take such things for granted. She called her pack the monster, I called mine the pig. I too experienced some trail magic as well as some moments of existential terror. Getting a woman's perspective on solo trekking was very interesting and enlightening for me. I didn't see a woman on my own trek unless I went to a mountain town or was on a popular day hike section of the CT. The challenges of soloing are indeed magnified by being a female alone and vulnerable. Being able to persevere and not bail out at the earliest convenience is also one of the books main themes. When you undertake a quest like this you are often riddled with self doubt and the whole why did I do this when I could be home in front of the tube with plumbing and central heating? I found the tone of this book to be extremely sad and I feel that her experience was about dealing with loss and rebuilding one's life in the face of hopelessness and despair. When one leaves the ordinary life for an adventure like this it is often a quest. I believe her quest was a transformation even though to some it might have seemed half-baked and possibly suicidal. I lived in Portland from 1992 to 1995 and am from the same generation. I wonder if Cheryl and I ever crossed paths in Portland? I would like to think so because solo trekkers are kindred spirits. When I finished this book I was almost moved to tears and deeply thankful to the author for sharing this experience with such a straight forward writing style that hid nothing and reveled the inner workings of the mind of a lost soul. I only heard about this book when I saw the movie trailer and was compelled to read it before seeing the movie which I believe Reese Witherspoon might be miscast. Every once and awhile you come across a book where you would like to thank the writer for writing it because it touches your life-this book is one of them.

I have never related so much to a book. Or rather to Cheryl herself. I will be reeling from this for a long time!

A moving story about love and loss. Must read. Would suggest getting the kindle edition, The print on the physical bookis a bit too small, can be hard to read.

Essere trasportati nel cuore di una persona e nel cuore selvaggio della natura e' il dono enorme che mi ha fatto questo libro, questa scrittrice piena di talento e con una grande anima . È questo il valore di un libro, ispirare, scavare dentro se stessi, stupire e dare spazio a ciò che ci fa crescere. Queste poche parole forse non sono abbastanza per recensire questo libro immenso.

'' Eu sabia que, se permitisse que o medo me ultrapassasse, minha jornada estava condenada. Eu decidi que estava segura. Eu era forte, eu era corajosa. Nada poderia me vencer. Insistir nessa história era uma forma de controle dos medos, que na maior parte do tempo funcionava. '' O interessante de ler histórias em fatos reais é ver o quão você também pode se permitir em iniciar algo do qual nunca imaginou. Esse livro me fez ver o quanto essa mulher foi corajosa em caminhar pelo PCT sozinha e ter certeza em sua escolha mesmo no decorrer da caminhada muitos não apoiarem, e para ela tudo era como uma reflexão interna caminhando longas distâncias e refletindo sobre grandes questões que aconteceram em sua vida, isso me fez refletir o quão (estar só) nos traz clareza de pensamento, perceber o quão sua própria companhia é por assim dizer: A melhor da qual você pode ter, tem uma parte do livro que ela diz: '' Sozinho sempre me senti como um lugar real para mim, como se não fosse um estado de ser, mas sim uma sala onde eu poderia me retirar para ser quem eu realmente sou'' . Há coragem que ela teve de passar noites em florestas podendo cruzar seu caminho com cobras, leões ou até mesmo um assassino em série, dormindo em lugares que poderiam não ser tão seguros, tudo isso para se dar a oportunidade de se redescobrir em uma nova perspectiva da vida. Há, que livro! Que livro! Pretendo rele-lo em breve, ou até mesmo ver o filme, mas como muito dizem: O filme não fala muito sobre o quanto ela sofreu com a morte da mãe e alguns crises familiares e internas. Então indico realmente a ler essa história incrível.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it was an honest, very real story about somebody going through a pretty rough patch in their life and departing on a journey to 'find themselves', pretty much unprepared and spontaneous. I was a little concerned it would be like one of those 'Eat, Pray, Love' books that are slightly too sugary and always have a happy ending to make everyone feel good. This one was very different - it was just raw and real, not your typical 'chick-lit' (which I loathe). The first few pages almost had me in tears as it reminded me of losing my father and the emotions you go through, regrets you have and the helplessness you experience. I was literally hooked from there. The book doesn't have a happy ending - it leaves Cheryl at the end of her trek along the PCT. We don't know what happens to her after that but you feel like she's come a long way from the person she started off as and you're confident she'll find her feet back in real life. It was uplifting without any obvious life-changing moments - a great read that I can whole-heartedly recommend.

Mucho mejor que la película. Una opinion muy honesta de los errores que se cometen cuando uno esta pasando por el luto de la persona mas importante en su vida. Es desgarrador e inspirador.