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bookwookiee

bookwookiee

Currently reading

Atonement
Ian McEwan
Oryx and Crake
Margaret Atwood

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail - Cheryl Strayed Strayed's essay "Heroin/e" had me crying like a baby, and the opening chapters to Wild, which rework that essay in many ways, had the same impact. It's probably not surprising then that the most interesting parts of this book, in my opinion, were the sections where she ruminated on her grief, her loss, her mistakes. Not in an apologetic way, but honestly. Grief is ugly and she didn't attempt to beautify it in anyway.

The actually hiking, however, was not as interesting to me. And that's not because I'm disinterested in it or the PCT as topic. It's primarily because, as she says throughout, she had no idea what she was doing. Every time she mentioned how heavy her pack was (or when her bandaids blew away ON THE FIRST DAY) I got unreasonably aggravated. I also expected more reflections on the trail itself, the nature around her. But there wasn't a whole lot of that other than how it directly related to her physical comfort/discomfort. I went into it expecting something more along the lines of to Into The Wild, in terms of expressing reverence for nature. But, in the end, this tells a much different story so you can't really fault her for that.

I'll definitely be adding more Strayed to my TBR. Her style is refreshing and her message, from what I've read so far, is honest. I'm amazed I hadn't discovered her long before, but happy that I have.