Hey everyone and how's it going? I know it's been a while since I've last posted anything on here. But, I'm back and I'm here to bring to you all a book review yay!!! (Side note: be expecting a lot of reviews lol!) Today I am reviewing for you all "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed. This book has been on the back of my mind for while so let's get started!

 

If you haven't read or at least seen the movie, then gather around kids, get nice and cozy, enjoy a warm drink and I'll tell you all about it...hehe!

 

The story is centered around Cheryl and her journey through the Pacific Crest Trail that runs along the Mexican Boarder in California and ends somewhere near the Canadian Boarder. Cheryl was 26 at the time and it was in the mid 90's when she done this. She had been through a lot, the lost of her mom, had affairs, separates then divorces her husband, and she and her siblings don't talk as much, same goes with her former step-dad, and also starts using heroine. She one days sees the guide book for the Pacific Crest Trail and flips through it and then sets it down. But, with her divorce, dealing with her new boyfriend, and drugs. She decides to go and get the book and goes for it! There is hilarious moment when she tries on her backpack, that is so totally filled with unnecessary things. Needless say while getting up off the floor, she brings with her the hood of the AC unit in her room! Plus, other funny moment.

 

So, that is as best as I can get with explaining the book! I thought this book was amazing, I felt that I was taking the trail with her and experiencing what she went through, all in the comforts of my own home. She made me laugh a bit and annoyed sometimes. She meets a lot of amazing people along the way. Majority of them were men, but they respected her for doing the trial all by herself. She did come across not so pleasant people, but mostly she found a lot of kind people. Her favorite was a guy name Doug.

 

This made me want to do something like that, but then I go "eh better not" lol! I wouldn't mind hiking and just exploring a park, but only for a week or two. But, she is a brave woman for doing so and I admire her, not a lot of us would do something that is out of our comfort zone. No matter who you are, but I guess if you do, then you learn more about yourself, without all the judgement that you rely on from others about yourself. It will totally shake me to the core if I did the PCT or something similar. Because, all we can do is just think and walk. Plus, not to mention keeping a lookout for wild animals and such. 

 

I totally recommend this book to everyone! Whoever you are! So, here is where I'll end! I hope you all are blasting through your TBRs! I have quite a bit on my table! Until the next post, be fantastic! 

 

TOODLES!!!

 

I haven't done one of these for a long time haha!!!

Beautifully written, honest, and heart wrenching.

The candor with which Strayed chronicles her experience of loss and grief is at times ugly and unflattering. But even though my life is drastically different from the one that she narrates, I see a lot of myself in her. Reading this memoir was a humbling experience. She makes me believe that maybe I can be wild and brave too.

Out of the 82 books I read (hopefully 83 if I manage to finish Outlander before the end of the year), those were my favourites (well, I took all my 5 stars read of 2017 and chose 10 out of those, it's not really a scientific rating):

 

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: because this book was EVERYTHING. You need to read it if you haven't yet.

 

2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor: and the whole trilogy. I totally enjoyed this unique universe with those amazing characters, a must read!

 

3. Traitor to the Throne by Alwyn Hamilton: just WOW! This series is just so important for me, I love this world.

 

4. Phobos4 by Victor Dixen: this is the last book in my favourite series of 2016. This conclusion was epic.

 

5. The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson: I just can't understand how I had never read Sanderson before this year. He is such an amazing author and I can't wait to discover more of his work.

 

6. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas: well, this series is one of my favourite of all time and this book did not disappoint.

 

7. The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye: I love this series full of Russian magic. I fell in love with the author's universe.

 

8. Warcross by Marie Lu: because, Marie Lu + video game = perfection.

 

9. The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli: a beautiful book with a strong message. This book made me open my eyes.

 

10. Wild by Cheryl Strayed: I think it is the first time ever a non-fiction book is on my top 10. But this was such a great experience, I had to include it.

 

What were some of your favourite books this year?

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Line.

Wild was a book that had been on my tbr pile for a while, so when I heard that the author was coming to our local Lit Fest, this seemed the perfect time to pick it up and read it.  I don't know quite what I was expecting, but it was not a memoir about hiking for three months across gruelling terrain with a huge backpack attached. However, such was the crazy adventure that Cheryl Strayed tackled back in 1995, before the days of internet or mobile phones. Having done minimal research, she had very little idea of what to expect and her guide book for the trail became her bible.  The agonies of the journey were lurid - boots that were too small, causing extreme damage to her feet; blistering, bruising and loss of toe-nails, as well as abrasions on her hips and shoulders from the weighty backpack that she dubbed Monster. But to her credit, she stumbled on, mile after mile, through extremes of temperature and weather, up and down mountains thousands of feet high. Her daily mileage increased from an initial, slow, eight miles per day, to a blistering nineteen as her fitness increased. Unfortunately for the reader, she wrote the account quite a number of years after completing the hike and the book felt like it had lost its immediacy. I trudged along with her, but there wasn't much in the way of excitement or detail and the scenery was not in my head like the sore feet were. The death of her mother at just 45 was the trigger for the journey and by the end of it, it appeared that she had achieved her objective of putting her demons to rest. Although hiking would not be my solution to such problems, it worked for Ms Strayed, and that was what mattered.

Women-studies college-dropout Woman messes up her life due to her own poor choices by:

-- Cheating on her husband with random men
-- Doing illegal drugs
-- Getting pregnant by her junkie boyfriend and having an abortion

Blames it on her mother dying three years previous so she decides to hike the PCT where she:

--Has unprotected sex with random men
--Lusts after nearly every man she meets on the trail
--Does illegal drugs
--Nearly dies due to her incompetence several times

Conclusion: After skipping most of the trail, she's still the same trainwreck she was before she started her "thru-hike"

Many of her stories are obviously embellished or just plain made up despite her claims that everything is true (even though she waited 20 years to write this book). She talks about how much she wants to write a novel on the trail and her book make uses of so many cheap literary fiction cliches. Like how many times someone waited until they were almost out of earshot on the trail and then turned around to yell something important at her. Or her farcical encounter with the most stereotypical redneck hunters the world has ever encountered (can't have a good modern women's book without at least a threatened-rape situation). She seemingly spent more time off the trail due to her own incompetence, laziness, or just wanting to hook up than she did actual hiking. Early on, she describes how she desperately wanted to give the male nurse a blowjob in the bathroom of her mother's hospital room while her mom is dying a painful cancer death just a few feet away. I should of just stopped listening there. She bemoans that her family fell apart and doesn't want anything do with her after her mother died. That's probably because she is horrible person that no one can stand be around. I have no idea why this book got so much hype (and a movie). There is nothing redeeming about it about it at all.