A review by siobhanward
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

adventurous reflective medium-paced

3.5

 Dang, this is a DIVISIVE book. Like people either adore it or despise it. Wild (pun intended). I'm not sure what y'alls experience with distance (or thru) content is, but going in wildly unprepared like Strayed did is absolutely common. I'm not sure why people are so shocked that she would do it. Read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods - there was a huge lack of preparedness there too. Not to mention that even in 2022 people are still doing thru hikes while grossly unprepared - check out Tiktok and you'll see tons of people, who, like Strayed, just kind of rolled up to the trail and hoped for the best. I'm just impressed Strayed managed 190 days (mostly) on the trail - most people seem to drop out a lot faster than her.

Anyway, defense of Strayed aside, the book was fine. Some parts were super engrossing, while others were boring. Truly, I don't care about all the conversations you had where people talked about how hot you were and/or brave for doing the PCT. Like, it's great (and frankly, I believe it), but after a while I just didn't care. Sorry. The parts about Strayed's mom were powerful and I loved how those parts were written. Other parts just seemed unneeded.

Also, hiking any huge distance trail just seems terrible. 0/10 will never attempt. 
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