Title: Wild
Author: Cheryl Strayed
Number of Pages: 311
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ (This is an excellent book, and I definitely recommend reading it. Everyone will take something away from this book.)
Review:
Cheryl Nyland was damaged. Not physically, but psychologically. Her mother, her rock, her world died of cancer when Cheryl was a senior in college in Minnesota. Growing up, Cheryl’s mother was the only one who held their family together. Cheryl and siblings (Leif her brother and Karen her sister) never had the luxuries other kids had. They didn't even have running water or regular meals until Cheryl was in high school. Cheryl’s father was an abusive man who Cheryl’s mother had trouble leaving. When she did finally leave, six-year-old Cheryl and her family moved onto land in Minnesota with Cheryl’s step father. Cheryl never really had a father figure; only a mother figure. When she was deprived of even that, she broke down.
Chery tried to figure out why the world took her middle-aged mother through unsafe and irresponsible sex and heroin. She stopped her academic pursuits, ruined and career, and trashed her marriage. She shut out friends and family and buried herself in heaps of grief and despair. She then stumbled across the a way she thought she might be able to turn her life around while she was flipping through a magazine. Mountains.
Cheryl’s decision to spend a summer hiking from California to Oregon was just as rash as her decision to go home with many guys in bars and stick a needle in her skin, but it was different. Her decision to hike the Pacific Crest Trail was progressive. Cheryl knew it would fundamentally alter her, and that was exactly what she needed. Cheryl wanted to shock herself into a new attitude. She wanted to find her purpose. She hoped to gain an understanding and positive outlook on life along the way. The wild experiences she had and eccentric people she met along her trek helped make Cheryl a new woman. They contributed to her fitting new last name “Strayed,” which Cheryl gave herself on her journey.
I respect Cheryl Strayed. Cheryl Nyland was doing her harm so she took it into her own hands and ended it. She dragged Cheryl Nyland into the wilderness where she was too distracted by surviving to engage in any self-destructive behavior. The way that Cheryl described arguing with herself on different points on the trail highlight this battle between her past and future self. The way she inserted anecdotes from her past into her hiking story is a magnificent and artful way of illustrating her deepest internal thoughts. This writing style indicates to readers that pushing forward successfully on the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) was the primary component of her thoughts, but that other side thoughts about her past life kept entering her cognition. These side thoughts became more and more sportic and dispersed as the hiking story went on, showing readers that they were being flushed out and that Cheryl was truly going through a transformation.
The individual anecdotes were engaging and indicative of Cheryl’s transformation as well. They went from being about her heroin use and sex life to being about her mother and her death to being about herself and the life she was going to live. Some of the most powerful anecdotes were about Cheryl nearly overdosing with one of her boyfriends in Portland, Oregon, about how she and her brother had to mercifully shoot their old, neglected horse multiple times in the head before it died in the field where their step-dad left it, and about how she was unsuccessful in attaining her mother's verbal approval in the hospital during her mother’s final days. The anecdotes clearly indicate the progression of thoughts that Cheryl flushed out of her system and came to grips with as she turned into a purposeful and content woman along the trail.
Wild is a phenomenally written story that keeps readers engaged and yearning for more. It takes unexpected twists and turns that parallel the unexpected twists and turns Strayed’s life took. It is extremely insightful and sheds light on very important aspects of our society. It is also shows readers what extreme hiking is all about. Most, if not all people, will find something about the book that will keep them flipping the pages and reading more.
Chery tried to figure out why the world took her middle-aged mother through unsafe and irresponsible sex and heroin. She stopped her academic pursuits, ruined and career, and trashed her marriage. She shut out friends and family and buried herself in heaps of grief and despair. She then stumbled across the a way she thought she might be able to turn her life around while she was flipping through a magazine. Mountains.
Cheryl’s decision to spend a summer hiking from California to Oregon was just as rash as her decision to go home with many guys in bars and stick a needle in her skin, but it was different. Her decision to hike the Pacific Crest Trail was progressive. Cheryl knew it would fundamentally alter her, and that was exactly what she needed. Cheryl wanted to shock herself into a new attitude. She wanted to find her purpose. She hoped to gain an understanding and positive outlook on life along the way. The wild experiences she had and eccentric people she met along her trek helped make Cheryl a new woman. They contributed to her fitting new last name “Strayed,” which Cheryl gave herself on her journey.
I respect Cheryl Strayed. Cheryl Nyland was doing her harm so she took it into her own hands and ended it. She dragged Cheryl Nyland into the wilderness where she was too distracted by surviving to engage in any self-destructive behavior. The way that Cheryl described arguing with herself on different points on the trail highlight this battle between her past and future self. The way she inserted anecdotes from her past into her hiking story is a magnificent and artful way of illustrating her deepest internal thoughts. This writing style indicates to readers that pushing forward successfully on the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) was the primary component of her thoughts, but that other side thoughts about her past life kept entering her cognition. These side thoughts became more and more sportic and dispersed as the hiking story went on, showing readers that they were being flushed out and that Cheryl was truly going through a transformation.
The individual anecdotes were engaging and indicative of Cheryl’s transformation as well. They went from being about her heroin use and sex life to being about her mother and her death to being about herself and the life she was going to live. Some of the most powerful anecdotes were about Cheryl nearly overdosing with one of her boyfriends in Portland, Oregon, about how she and her brother had to mercifully shoot their old, neglected horse multiple times in the head before it died in the field where their step-dad left it, and about how she was unsuccessful in attaining her mother's verbal approval in the hospital during her mother’s final days. The anecdotes clearly indicate the progression of thoughts that Cheryl flushed out of her system and came to grips with as she turned into a purposeful and content woman along the trail.
Wild is a phenomenally written story that keeps readers engaged and yearning for more. It takes unexpected twists and turns that parallel the unexpected twists and turns Strayed’s life took. It is extremely insightful and sheds light on very important aspects of our society. It is also shows readers what extreme hiking is all about. Most, if not all people, will find something about the book that will keep them flipping the pages and reading more.
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