I don't find her self-involved or Godless, merely honest and I enjoyed each and every step. You embark on the ill-planned journey of her life in addition to the hiking trip and travel not only through the rough terrain and mishaps, but deep into her soul searching. Strayed shares abundant, almost copious details from her 2 months journey, laying out all the ugly and pretty inbetween with a raw, soul-searching style. Finding herself in a dark place, she turned to the guide for hiking the Pacific Coast Trail as many people turn to the Bible or any other source of enlightenment to find themselves.

At 26, Cheryl was divorced from a man she loved lost her supportive mother to cancer abusive father left around age 6 disconnected from siblings and was pulling out of a previous spiral into the world of heroin. This selection was wonderful and here is why I enjoyed it.

I just tend to stray from over-hyped books at first.

Yes, Oprah has inspired thousands to pick up a book who otherwise might not have and catapulted authors into super stardom and for that I applaud her and am thankful. I am probably one of the last people to read and review this book because I tend to shy away from most Oprah selections. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her. Strayed faced down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - and to do it alone. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Wild is a powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an 1100-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe - and built her back up again.Īt 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed