Not So Wild

“I always did what someone else wanted me to do. I’ve always been someone’s daughter or mother or wife.  I’ve never just been me.” Truth.

34.12 Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

The first part of the book describing the loss of her mother was almost impossible for me to read. I can’t do it. I can’t survive it and I am almost twice her age.  I can’t understand her intense anger, but I don’t need to because it is her’s not mine. The rest of the fallout in her life though seems wildly out of proportion and completely her fault. Why has she lost contact with her siblings?  Why did she make strangers more important than her husband? Why so many places in so little time?  I thought we would at least see her try to figure these things out but we didn’t.

Honestly, it didn’t really feel like much growth happened at all and that is fine except now you have written a book and the title states you went from Lost to Found so readers expect something. I was so glad she made it but I didn’t feel at all confident that she ended up better off than she was.  I mean, you just spent 50 odd days hiking thousands of miles and you are worried that a man is going to see the marks left by your backpack and be grossed out? I realize you are 26, but come on. And if you are really that worried about it, how about you change from your usual habit and not go home with him?

I read Cheryl’s Sugar column and missed the humor she uses there. There were a few funny things here and there but she was so focused in on herself during the hike that it became boring and repetitive. It was about her pack (always too heavy), and her shoes (too small and falling apart), and how great it is to shower and eat; not very much about the passing miles and landscape.  Some history of the trail was added in, some random brushes with animals, and a few details about the people she met (mostly that the boys were cute), but it just seems there should have been more. I also hope she is getting endorsement fees from REI and Snapple!

This is a well-written book, readable and relateable. But I didn’t come away wanting to know any more about her, just more about the people and things she didn’t really pay much attention to or learn from.