Wild ( Vintage) (Media Tie-In) (Paperback) by Cheryl Strayed

About the Book

"At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State--and she would do it alone"--Amazon.com.

Book Synopsis

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State--and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, St. Louis Dispatch

Review Quotes

Spectacular. . . . A literary and human triumph. --The New York Times Book Review

One of the most original, heartbreaking, and beautiful American memoirs in years. . . . Awe-inspiring. --NPR

An addictive, gorgeous book that not only entertains, but leaves us the better for having read it. . . . Strayed is a formidable talent. --The Boston Globe

Strayed's language is so vivid, sharp and compelling that you feel the heat of the desert, the frigid ice of the High Sierra, and the breathtaking power of one remarkable woman finding her way--and herself--one brave step at a time. --People (4 stars)

Cinematic. . . . A rich, riveting story. . . . Our verdict: A. --Entertainment Weekly

Pretty much obliterated me. I was reduced, during the book's final third, to puddle-eyed cretinism. . . . As loose and sexy and dark as an early Lucinda Williams song. It's got a punk spirit and makes an earthy and American sound. . . . The cumulative welling up I experienced during Wild was partly a response to that too infrequent sight: that of a writer finding her voice, and sustaining it, right in front of your eyes. --Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Devastating and glorious. . . . By laying bare a great unspoken truth of adulthood--that many things in life don't turn out the way you want them to, and that you can and must live through them anyway--Wild feels real in many ways that many books about 'finding oneself' . . . do not. --Slate

Incisive and telling. . . . [Strayed] has the ineffable gift every writer longs for of saying exactly what she means in lines that are both succinct and poetic . . . an inborn talent for articulating angst and the gratefulness that comes when we overcome it. --The Washington Post

Vivid, touching and ultimately inspiring account of a life unraveling and of the journey that put it back together. --The Wall Street Journal

Brave seems like the right word to sum up this woman and her book. . . . Strayed's journey is exceptional. --San Francisco Chronicle

Strayed's journey was at least as transcendent as it was turbulent. She faced down hunger, thirst, injury, fatigue, boredom, loss, bad weather, and wild animals. Yet she also reached new levels of joy, accomplishment, courage, peace, and found extraordinary companionship. --The Christian Science Monitor

Strayed . . . catalogs her epic hike . . . with a raw emotional power that makes the book difficult to put down. . . . In walking, and finally, years later, in writing, Strayed finds her way again. And her path is as dazzlingly beautiful as it is tragic. --Los Angeles Times

A fearless story, told in honest prose that is wildly lyrical as often as it is dirtily physical. --Minneapolis Star Tribune

Strayed writes a crisp scene; her sentences hum with energy. She can describe a trail-parched yearning for Snapple like no writer I know. . . . It becomes impossible not to root for her. --The Plain Dealer

Brilliant. . . . Cheryl Strayed emerges from her grief-stricken journey as a practitioner of a rare and vital vocation. She has become an intrepid cartographer of the human heart. --Houston Chronicle

A deeply honest memoir about mother and daughter, solitude and courage, and regaining footing one step at a time. --Vogue

Strayed's relationship with her environment is humble and respectful, not exploitative. The landscape she travails is not a prop for her self-actualization, but a real, physical world that bewilders her, a world in which she learns she can survive bewilderment. . . . Strayed bears the torn feet and bruised back of a true pilgrim. Hers is high-voltage prose that challenges any preconceived notions about what it means to be a woman alone, and what it means to journey. . . . Wild will gather you up with its tenderness. It will flay you with its honesty. --Los Angeles Review of Books

About The Author

CHERYL STRAYED is the author of the #1 New York Times best seller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was the first selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0 and became an Oscar-nominated film starring Reese Witherspoon;Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, a national best seller now the basis of the WBUR podcast Dear Sugar Radio, co-hosted with Steve Almond; and Torch, her debut novel. Her books have been translated into forty languages, and her essays and other writings have appeared in numerous publications.