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A review by amber_lea84
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
5.0
I didn't write a review when I finished this book because I wasn't really sure what to say.
It's a story about a woman who felt lost after the death of her mother. I feel like all the negative reviews on here totally overlook this point and they chose to focus on what she did afterwards, as if she did it for no reason. Not that I can say I fully understand the authors drive to casually do hard drugs or screw every guy she meets, but she's a disaster. She's obviously not proud of it, and I don't think she believes her behavior was justified. She was lost, and trying to feel good again. She was obviously drowning in guilt because her mom died when she (the author) was a brat in her 20s. She is plagued by the fact that her mom, the most important person in her life, will never know her grown-up self, and she can't find a way through the grief of losing that relationship years before she ever considered she could.
I lost my grandma, who played a huge part in raising me, when I was 15, and my mom is currently fighting a battle with cancer. In fact, she called me and told me so when I was about 10 pages into this book. So, I find the struggle relatable. If you've yet to lose someone, or you have an abundance of important people in your life, or maybe have no important people in your life, I could see not finding much to like about this book. Because yeah, it could easily seem like a book about a dumbass making strangely bad choices. (Which again, not even I really understand making those specific choices. But I'm sure we've made our own bad choices that most people wouldn't get.)
But life troubles aside, it's also a book about hiking. Or maybe you could say it's a book about goals. Cheryl decides she's going to hike over a 1000 miles, despite not really being knowledgeable enough or conditioned to the task, and she refuses to let anything stop her. She doesn't give up because she feels she HAS to do it. She acts as if her life depends on it. It's kind of a weird arbitrary goal because she doesn't have to do it, and she could stop at any time and literally nothing bad would happen...but the struggle is real. It's a story about pushing ahead no matter how hard it gets. It was a pointless goal, sure, but in doing it she proved a lot of important things to herself and reset her priorities. (So in a way, her life did depend on it.)
And to all the people who say she was stupid...maybe you should try doing something stupid. Sometimes stupid things aren't so stupid.
When I was 21 I put all my shit in my car and moved across the country with no job and enough money to live for like a month, and it was completely insane and it worked out. It was the best decision I ever made and I don't regret it for a second.
So in conclusion, live your damn life. You can be super cautious and make only smart choices and still get diagnosed with lung cancer in your forties and be dead inside three months. You can't cheat death, but you can make the most of the time you have.
It's a story about a woman who felt lost after the death of her mother. I feel like all the negative reviews on here totally overlook this point and they chose to focus on what she did afterwards, as if she did it for no reason. Not that I can say I fully understand the authors drive to casually do hard drugs or screw every guy she meets, but she's a disaster. She's obviously not proud of it, and I don't think she believes her behavior was justified. She was lost, and trying to feel good again. She was obviously drowning in guilt because her mom died when she (the author) was a brat in her 20s. She is plagued by the fact that her mom, the most important person in her life, will never know her grown-up self, and she can't find a way through the grief of losing that relationship years before she ever considered she could.
I lost my grandma, who played a huge part in raising me, when I was 15, and my mom is currently fighting a battle with cancer. In fact, she called me and told me so when I was about 10 pages into this book. So, I find the struggle relatable. If you've yet to lose someone, or you have an abundance of important people in your life, or maybe have no important people in your life, I could see not finding much to like about this book. Because yeah, it could easily seem like a book about a dumbass making strangely bad choices. (Which again, not even I really understand making those specific choices. But I'm sure we've made our own bad choices that most people wouldn't get.)
But life troubles aside, it's also a book about hiking. Or maybe you could say it's a book about goals. Cheryl decides she's going to hike over a 1000 miles, despite not really being knowledgeable enough or conditioned to the task, and she refuses to let anything stop her. She doesn't give up because she feels she HAS to do it. She acts as if her life depends on it. It's kind of a weird arbitrary goal because she doesn't have to do it, and she could stop at any time and literally nothing bad would happen...but the struggle is real. It's a story about pushing ahead no matter how hard it gets. It was a pointless goal, sure, but in doing it she proved a lot of important things to herself and reset her priorities. (So in a way, her life did depend on it.)
And to all the people who say she was stupid...maybe you should try doing something stupid. Sometimes stupid things aren't so stupid.
When I was 21 I put all my shit in my car and moved across the country with no job and enough money to live for like a month, and it was completely insane and it worked out. It was the best decision I ever made and I don't regret it for a second.
So in conclusion, live your damn life. You can be super cautious and make only smart choices and still get diagnosed with lung cancer in your forties and be dead inside three months. You can't cheat death, but you can make the most of the time you have.