Wild

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.

I read this book sitting on the balcony of a condo at the beach. I got a sunburn because I couldn’t put it down.

Cheryl’s trek along the PCT is weirdly harrowing and heart-warming as she meets creeps, clowns, and kindred folk. But what makes the book so compelling for me is how Cheryl delves into her need for this test of her resolve, which is to figure out what went wrong with her life after her mother’s death and how to fix it.

I was with her every step of the way and felt as if I, too, had… show more.

I had heard of the Pacific Crest Trail before reading Wild, but Strayed brought it to life and I will now never forget it.

Her writing is stellar and paints what she experienced in vivid color. I was particularly taken with her story because as an avid hiker who retired to the Rockies, when I have something serious to work through, I escape to the trails by myself. The fresh air, the vistas, the solitude, the birds, and the trees, along with the moving meditation of my feet, all help me put things in perspective.

Before embarking on the… show more.

Wild is the classic walking/hiking memoir, loved by millions including myself.

Cherly Strayed beautifully shares the wilds of the Pacific Crest Trail at the same time her words taking us on an emotional reflection of her childhood with her mother and of growing into adulthood after her mother’s death. Ultimately, she discovers through walking how to live without her mother. I love the way she seamlessly tells two riveting stories at once.  

Wild is a memoir by Cheryl Strayed that follows her as she hikes 1100 miles across the Pacific Crest Trail in the summer and fall of 1995.

I gave birth to my fourth child that year, and this book depicts the birth of Cheryl Strayed as she labors along a dusty path in order to travel beyond complicated relationships, drugs, divorce, and the death of her beloved mother, who is diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer at only forty-five years old.

She draws the reader into her story through a series of flashbacks to her prior life that led Strayed to… show more.

Cheryl Strayed was as naively unprepared for her hike on the Sierra Crest Trail as I was for my trip through the African wilderness.

She sought the wilderness to escape from a failed marriage and to cope with the death of her mother. We both encountered many unexpected challenges on our journeys that helped us to overcome the emotions that held us hostage. By the end of our respective journeys, we each had found life-altering strength, courage, and wisdom to move forward in our lives productively with confidence.

Stories that chronicle a person’s positive transformations are my favorites.