Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail Paperback – Large Print, April 5, 2013

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

When I read the synopsis of the book, my first instinct was to run far far away. I generally steer clear of any books with themes like "I need to find my purpose by doing something stupid in nature". Plus I saw her last name. Really? However a friend of mine insisted I give it a shot and so I started reading it. Just to be clear and without giving too much away, the book is a true story about a woman who hikes all by her lonesome on a trail that I kept wanting to call the Pacific COAST trail. However it's actually the Pacific CREST trail (probably much less glamorous).It didn't take long before her beautiful prose dragged me kicking and screaming into her journey and had me sweating and nervous right along with her. She's brutally honest and open about her failures, successes, grief and general sense of being lost. The two things I loved most about the book was her powerful writing and her ability to keep me interested. She balanced giving enough detail and creating the environment of a "journey' without beating you to death with every single unpleasant detail one would suffer in a summer long hike. I never felt bored or thought "oh boy, here is where she's going to talk about every step up a mountain".Don't get me wrong, I love hiking but that alone doesn't make for a great story. However Strayed was able to put together all the important details and interesting dramas to give you one awesome story that's hard to put down. Her writing was also a good balance between quality without being too dramatic or ostentatious for it's own sake. Her voice is powerful and intense and at times, bordering on poetic. Probably one of the most haunting moments in the entire book was a flashback where she had to deal with her mother's aging horse.I think most readers who enjoy a bit of adventure, some quality prose (if you're a fan of the Twilight books, go elsewhere) and a solid, autobiographical tale will like this book. I suppose it's only fair in a review to mention a few small criticisms as well. The one theme, she did at times seem to beat us over the head with, was her need for sex, closeness and affection. At times it felt like she just wanted to bare her soul a little too much (I could do without some of her lustful cravings while simultaneously commenting on how disgusting she was after having not showered for days, sweated profusely and still wearing the same clothing). Also her recurrent mother theme at times became less poignant with the constant reference to how difficult her mother's death had been. Towards the end of the book, some of her insights she had gained over her voyage started becoming repetitive and in many ways, for me the book was its best from the beginning until about half way to maybe three quarters of the way through.SPOILER ALERT: She lived. Granted anyone who bothers to note that it's a true story written by the woman who hiked the Pacific Crest trail will know this before reading it. For much of this book, I can't believe sometimes how she survived and how she managed to keep going. At many times, it was clear she got lucky and despite her prowess as a writer, she clearly suffered from a tiny bit of outdoorsy dumbness. However you have to admire her strength and perseverance. My feet were practically aching through most of the read. Overall it's a great novel, powerfully written and intensely told. I loved it!