Kelli R. (kellilee) reviewed on 12/3/2014 + 66 more book reviews

Although I have only spent one night in the woods with a backpack, I'm oh so happy I took this hike with Cheryl Strayed. Unlike some die hard backpackers that have criticized the book for fear that more inexperienced hikers will follow in the author's blistered footsteps, I really understood this memoir and her motivations. In some ways, I've lived a parallel life to Cheryl Strayed minus the 1100-mile hike. We were born the same year and we lost a parent the same year. The author lost her mother to lung cancer when her mother was 45; I lost my father to lung cancer when my father was 47. What followed those deaths for both of us was a pattern of self-destructive behavior that would last for several years. One morning at about the halfway point of listening to the audiobook and walking my dog at 5 a.m., I burst into tears and realized that I was reading one of the best books of 2012.

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