Wild

Recently I finished the very popular, modern memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012) by Cheryl Strayed, and I have finally realized what all the recent hype about the book is about. Wild is a touching, heartfelt true story about a woman who, while dealing the death of her young mother, decides to take an extensive hike on the Pacific Crest Trail through much of California and Oregon. On her journey she slowly is able to come to terms with her mother's death and the disintegration of her family and marriage by becoming one with the wilderness, encountering obstacle upon obstacle in the process.

Strayed, the author of Wild, writes her memoir in an exquisite, personal manner, making the reader feel as if they are with Strayed on the trail, rejoicing in her achievements and mourning with her through her sorrows and hardships. Strayed, however, never allows her detail-oriented writing style to lead to boredom or monotony. Her detail only allows the reader to fully experience Strayed's story. By the end of the book, I felt as if I was a personal friend of Cheryl Strayed, ready to hear more of her life story and feeling as if I had just seen the beauty of the Pacific Northwest with her.

After reading Wild, I have learned a valuable lesson in grief. Through Strayed's story of her both poor and wise choices following her mother's death, I am better able to comprehend the complexity of losing someone very close, which I have fortunately not had to deal too much with at my young age. Additionally, on a less serious note, I now I have a deep desire to embark on a spiritually-awakening long-term hike as Strayed did. Maybe with a great deal of training, preparation, and parent-convincing I can do a couple hundred miles on the close-by Appalachian Trail after my senior year.

Overall, Wild is an absolutely spectacular book, and definitely now ranks as one of my favorite memoirs of all time. (I will discuss my most loved memoir in the near future.) I recommend this book to anyone looking for an enlightening, relatively easy read, and especially to those who are huge nature-lovers or who are going through the loss of a close friend or family member themselves.

Thank you for reading! If you would like to further discuss this wonderful book, feel free to comment below or send me an email at brockeaston98@gmail.com.

"I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me."
- Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Next Week: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath