Wild: From Lost to Found
on the Pacific Crest Trail
By: Cheryl StrayedNarrated by Bernadette Dunne
Listening length: 13 hours, 2 minutes
Publicization date: March 20, 2012
My review: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read for my March 2023 Reading challenge, prompt 4: Women's history: about women, by women, for women. This one is about a woman, by a woman and read by another woman. =)
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.
At 22, 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: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - and to do it alone. 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.
Strayed faced down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. 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.
I have been putting off reading this book for so long until I finally saw that it was available on audiobook from my library! So, I listened to it. Not sure I would have finished it otherwise. I cannot believe how woefully unprepared she was for this trek. Strayed is beyond lucky that she wasn't badly injured or lost on the trail. I'm glad that she has her amazing story to tell, but I hope that others don't take her story as "advice" and take on their own trek in her style. This kind of journey needs to be taken with preparation. Had she been lost or injured, others would have had to go out and find her and/or rescue her due to her lack of preparation. In my neck of the woods, we hear stories all the time of ill-prepared campers and/or hikers who get lost and/or injured. I feel a preface on the book saying that you should always take precautions before taking such a journey would be prudent.
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.
At 22, 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: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - and to do it alone. 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.
Strayed faced down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. 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.
I have been putting off reading this book for so long until I finally saw that it was available on audiobook from my library! So, I listened to it. Not sure I would have finished it otherwise. I cannot believe how woefully unprepared she was for this trek. Strayed is beyond lucky that she wasn't badly injured or lost on the trail. I'm glad that she has her amazing story to tell, but I hope that others don't take her story as "advice" and take on their own trek in her style. This kind of journey needs to be taken with preparation. Had she been lost or injured, others would have had to go out and find her and/or rescue her due to her lack of preparation. In my neck of the woods, we hear stories all the time of ill-prepared campers and/or hikers who get lost and/or injured. I feel a preface on the book saying that you should always take precautions before taking such a journey would be prudent.
Overall, this is an interesting story of her trek. I did enjoy most parts, though it was kind of all over the place with her memories woven within the hike of the trail...
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