Wild

Cheryl Strayed’s Wild came into my life when I was facing a similar-enough crossroads that Strayed had faced in the memoir: Strayed’s mother had passed away and marriage had bottomed out. So, in an effort to find herself, she took off on the Pacific Crest Trail as a solo hiker.

Wild reminded me not only of the resiliency of the human spirit, but that healing is a messy, non-linear process. I was reminded of my own capacity to not only strike out on solo adventures, but battle my own demons. 

I loved this book. Cheryl Strayed makes you feel that you’re on this journey with her in all of its heartbreaking (and backbreaking) intensity.

Her frustration about many of the annoying details of long-distance hiking seems so real to me. And her anguish about her mother’s death is just as real, as well as beautiful and agonizing. What’s more, her experiences are totally relatable, even if you’ve never gone on a hike or ventured into the mountains. 

The day after I finished hiking the 1,200-mile Ice Age Trail, a friend put this book in my hand and said, “You’re the Cheryl Strayed of the Ice Age Trail!” During my five-week hike, friends had been constantly texting me about this book, so I was eager to dig in.

Unlike other hiking books, this one is as much about the healing powers of nature as it is about what it’s like to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. I’d just experienced a lot of these (unexpected) healing powers myself, so this book confirmed that what I loved about my IAT… show more.

I loved this book because I could relate to the tough, emotional place the author was in when she made this epic journey. Her rucksack was extremely heavy. It felt like it represented the burden she was carrying at the time. I loved the unfolding of both her physical and emotional journey, how much she learned about herself, and how much she was eventually able to let go of to enable her to move forward.

Reading this book motivated me to go on a similar journey, hiking many of the Camino Pilgrimage routes. This was a book I thought about… show more.

This isn’t your typical feel-good, “I found myself on a hike” memoir. Strayed is brutally candid about her flaws, mistakes, and the emotional wreckage she carried along the Pacific Crest Trail. It's like she brought you on this grueling journey to confront her demons, and somehow, you end up confronting your own.

Her vulnerability is so palpable that you can practically feel the blisters forming on your feet. It’s raw, it’s real, and it makes you want to hug your inner mess a little tighter.

I loved reading about a woman discovering her strength in the outdoors. This was the first book I read framed around a solo hiking trip but about deeper themes such as processing grief and searching for identity.

I was absorbed by the book’s masterful structure that weaves in these bigger themes while making me feel like I was on that trail with her. Strayed’s voice is captivating and witty, and her observations are wise. This book did not inspire me to hike solo – I’d done that already – but it inspired me to become a writer. An equally daunting… show more.

This book changed my life. The quiet way it examines the true, raw nature of trauma and healing helped show me that I needed to take my own journey of healing.

Cheryl’s brutal honesty about her struggles with her mother’s death and deep insecurities are something we can all relate to. At a writing workshop with Cheryl, she joked, “I thought I was writing a book about a hike, but it turned out to be a book about my mother.” The way Cheryl interweaves her memories along with her spectacular (and at times comical) hike along the PCT is genius.… show more.

Much like A Walk in the Woods, Wild takes an ordinary person and puts them in an extremely challenging environment only to show they were unprepared for the rigors of the great outdoors.

Strayed has a similar goal to Bryson, but chooses the Pacific Crest Trail. The hike is an attempt at self-discovery as well as to challenge herself after experiencing various addictions and the loss of her mother. Strayed’s motives are not unlike those of my brothers and I as we ventured into the BWCAW while navigating our young lives as twenty-somethings.

The first book I read that spoke intimately to my belief in the power of walking (in fact any physical and mental endurance challenge) to change your life for the better when you’ve been through dark and difficult times.

I also loved it for its celebration of nature, the joy of journeying alone, and having random encounters with strangers.

I read this book long after it was published, wondering if it could possibly fill the boots of its huge reputation, and was immediately transported. I found myself completely wrapped up in the story, the engine, the propulsive forward movement. I began to read with a pencil in my hand, trying to figure out how it worked.

Cheryl Strayed effortlessly guided me through layers of time and place, all while we walked together along the Pacific Crest Trail toward some hoped-for but unknowable future. I wanted to go every step of the way with her.