Wild

After finishing Amanda Knox's Waiting to be Heard, I was in the mood for more female empowerment and picked up Cheryl Strayed's Wild as my second in the Summer of the Memoir. Or, at least, what I thought would be female empowerment.

Don't get me wrong; there is no way I could have done what Strayed did. After the way her hike initially started, I would have bailed before I lost sight of the highway. Her's is a story of a lost woman thrown into yet more upheaval at the death of her mother. Desperate and destined to be alone, Strayed makes every effort to push the people who care about her as far away as possible. Then epitomizes the very definition of being alone by hiking through the wilderness - the Pacific Crest Trail, specifically - refusing any indication of togetherness, camaraderie, or, well, the opportunity to not be alone. But her trip has a purpose: the ever-cliched, "find herself," and rid herself of the demons that possess her to crave her solitary existence. Her's is a story built on the theme of being completely alone, highlighting both the benefits and terrible pitfalls, sometimes literally.

As readers, it's natural for us to place ourselves in the character's position and imagine what we would do, what decisions we'd make, if we were them. Especially if what we're reading is non-fiction. Had I been Strayed, the first thing I would have thought when considering this wilderness endeavor was, "What about all the freaks I'm going to meet along the way?" And then I probably would have scrapped the whole trip altogether. My friend read the book with me and we both wondered why she didn't think to bring a gun among her condoms and other relatively unnecessary items crammed in her pack. But what I ultimately really enjoyed about the story was that she didn't encounter any real freaks. There was the odd-ball here and there, but most everyone restored the human spirit that we'll help someone just because it's the right thing to do.

Strayed's adventure also proved that no matter how meticulous you plan your life or anything in it, it can be shot to shit in a matter of seconds (but anyone who's been pregnant and wanted a pickle only to see it come back 30 minutes later could tell you that). And that, ultimately, in this big, bad, world, no matter how much us humans try to convince each other it's the other way around, Mother Nature is what really rules this beast.

Of course, the story wouldn't have been interesting if everything had gone exactly as it should have. There were ups and downs, literally and figuratively, re-routes, no water where there should have been (I was genuinely scared at that point), misplaced trails (pretty scared during that, too), wild animals, and the ultimate fear and set-back of unpredictability.

I suggested this book as a summer-read to my book club the year before, touting it as a better, not-as-ridiculous option to Eat, Pray, Love, a memoir-turned-movie that was treated as the Bible for women. I thought it was good, but nothing as life-changing as my friends insisted. And I definitely didn't waste time seeing the movie. With that said, I definitely appreciated and enjoyed Wild more than Eat, Pray, Love and found it a lot more relatable even though both stories center around incredibly selfish people with self-destructive tendencies. But who can't relate to that? Perhaps Eat, Pray, Love is geared more towards the older generation, already settled but not wanting to be, while Wild is for those still young, unsure of what roads to take in life but it's either hike alone through the woods or eventually wind up in jail on drug charges.

Well written and succinctly told, Cheryl Strayed's Wild is definitely worth hauling in your tote, and something you'll polish off in a weekend. She takes you on her emotional and physical journey, leaving the reader feel as if they were walking beside her, feet-achingly exhausted but perhaps learning something about themselves along the way.

If you're going to read Strayed's adventure, and I highly recommend that you do, you better get on it as Hollywood has turned it into a movie, out sometime this year. I'm always a proponent of reading the book before seeing the movie (or, more often than not, *instead* of seeing the movie), but in this case I'm particularly worried about the story being made into some thriller-bordering-on-horror flick given the premise of the single, blond, white female in the woods alone. I shudder at the mere thought of what those "creative" types could come up with after the liberties Stanley Kubrick took with The Shining (nope, I'll never get over it). With Reese Witherspoon starring as Strayed, my hope is somewhat restored.

I don't remember if Strayed had decided to write the book of her hike before she embarked on it, or if it was something that came together later, but its existence highlights one major, underlying theme: you are never really alone.