Title: Wild: A Journey From Lost To Found
Author: Cheryl Strayed
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Blurb: Wild is a memoir written by Cheryl Strayed. Cheryl was twenty-two years when she thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s demise, her family disbanded and her marriage fell apart. After four years of her mother’s death, still consumed with sorrow, she made an impulsive decision to hike the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail), she said, “in order to save myself”.
Review: At twenty-two, Cheryl lost her mother to lung cancer. With her mother gone, her stepfather and siblings scattered. Cheryl was waitressing, servicing to pay off her student debt for a degree she failed to complete. Soon, she started having drugs, committed infidelities, all of which led her marriage to fall apart.
In the wake of her divorce, she invented a new last name for herself: Strayed, for she had strayed. Four years after her mother’s demise, still “unmoored by sorrow”, she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail as she believed was, “my way back to the person I used to be”, she says. In her grief, pushing her body across the PCT was the only thing she could think of that might numb the ache.
During the hike, her toenails fell off and her skin rubbed bloody by her oversized pack. She met a few people on the trail and got a nickname the other hikers gave her, “Queen Of The PCT”. She hiked more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State.Cheryl ended her hike at the Bridge of The Gods. The woman that emerged from the wilderness was finally gathered.
The trail taught her everything she couldn’t know, though felt it was already contained within her. She was strong and ready for life. The book is compelling and dark and has an earthy sound. It is uplifting but not in the form many expect. The kind of uplifting that makes you wonder for days, but also, sparkle with warmth. The book tells us about her journey, which was dirty, serene, and yes, Wild.
P.S. The book has also been made into a movie by the same name starring Reese Witherspoon.
Rating: 4/5
Price: 314 INR on Kindle and 399 INR for a Paperback edition.
You can buy it from Amazon here.
– Ravneet Kaur Chawla
Intern at A Colorful Riot!
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