Wild {A Book Review}

Title : Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Author: Cheryl Strayed

Publisher: Knopf

Release Date: March 20th, 2012

Summary from GoodReads:

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.

At twenty-two, 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 faces 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.

Quotes:

“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.”

My Take: Ever since the book was on Oprah's Book Club and then when it won an award on GoodReads this year, I was so antsy to read it. It had been on my TBR list for a while, but I never picked it up. When I got chosen to give this book for World Book Night I knew it was meant to be. 
I read it and loved it. It came at a perfect time, with my quarter-life crisis, and after reading Cheryl's story I knew it was going to be okay. There has been mixed reviews about it, but I think it was so good. It was inspirational. 
Cheryl's life turned upside down when she found out her mother was dying. And when her mother passed, Cheryl's life spiraled down, along with her marriage and what was left of her family (her brother and sister). She got into drugs, she got into unhealthy relationships, she missed her mom, and wished to have her family back, she divorced her husband. 
Four years after she felt she lost everything when her mom passed, she decides to go on a three month trail. It was her first hiking experience, and who on Earth decided to hike two states without experience is beyond me. But Cheryl went in confident, not really knowing what was it she was supposed to reveal about herself at the beginning. But soon she realized that she was not prepared at all, she saw numerous snakes, and bears, and a fox. She hiked through the scorching desert, and one of the harshest cold and snow,  and even hiked through the rain.  
This woman was a trooper. I felt the cold when she was freezing. And felt hopeless when she ran out of water and money. Was happy when she found the water, and when she got her new boots. This book was about Cheryl's adventure to find some part of her that was lost. She was the true Queen of the Trail. And after reading this, it made me want to have the courage to go on a soul searching, three month, 1,100 mile hike or to, just have a slight thought about doing something like this.  

4 out of  5 pendants

Find my other reviews here: Book Thoughts Have you ever wished to go out into the world to find the piece you think is missing? Or to just explore the world?