Wild is a tremendous story about a shattered woman finding her way on the Pacific Crest Trail. After the death of her mother, a disintegrated family, and an unsustainable marriage, Cheryl Strayed embarks on an eleven-hundred mile solo hike hopefully to recover from a low, self-destructive place in her life.

This memoir focuses on the continuous theme of her mother’s presence as Strayed recalls memories from her childhood. Often, Strayed undergoes rage about her mother’s death. Strayed additionally suffers externally from blistering, bleeding, and dehydration. 

Strayed emphasizes her loneliness on the trail. Although she meets other hikers periodically, she treks alone for majority of the undertaking. Isolation becomes crucial to her recovery back to an internally strong person. Strayed writes,  “The thing about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail  . . . was how few choices I had and how often I had to do the thing I least wanted to do. How there was no escape of denial.”

Wild is a remarkable venture of an internally broken yet hopeful woman. Strayed engages readers with her sorrows but also intrigues an audience who is interested in how she survived such a treacherous quest.

Written by Libby Sirak’15