Wild by Cheryl Strayed Book Review

Here's another book club read that we discussed for in July.  I've been working on this review for a while, just never was complete enough to post it.

Image from amazon.com

Wild by Cheryl Strayed is about a woman's journey to find herself after a series of poor choices and the tragic death of her mother on the Pacific Coast Trail (from Southern California to Oregon). Find a more detailed review here.

Cheryl starts her journey as an inexperienced hiker, making novice mistakes, but forced by her self-imposed circumstances and surroundings, learns how to be an avid and and agile hiker.   To her surprise (and mine as well), she doesn't dwell on the life events she thought she would when she set out on this hike (her mother's death, her divorce, her drug abuse), but rather focuses on how to accomplish the tasks of the next day.  As hiking becomes more natural for her and she is reassured by her fellow PCT hikers, she finally begins to ponder life, her decisions in life, and its unfairness.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone.  Yes, this is a 'find yourself', true-life story and the author takes a literal and figurative journey in life, one where Cheryl Strand hopes to weed through and reflect on her recent past of poor decisions and emotional roller coasters.  The actuality of hiking the (PCT) trail that most avid hikers train for, without any preparation (including how to prepare her pack) is in itself the life experience that lends to the emotional and personal reflection Cheryl Strand hoped for when she set out on the journey.

There are portions of the book I found very moving and emotional for me.  It's difficult to put into words why these portions were so moving except that they were stories in which the reader finds Cheryl resolving the unsettled emotions of her wayward life before beginning this hike. I couldn't stop myself from checking out who Cheryl Strand is today and where life has led her.  Of course, as one may expect she is happy, writing (as she wanted to), and re-married with children.  I recently heard a podcast on NPR where she indicated that through the book she has found her sister (daughter of her father and another woman), someone she knew existed, but was never sure if she would ever be in contact with, I imagine the changes in her life as a result of writing this book are worthy of their own telling!

Book Review - The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

I started writing this review a long time ago and didn't take the time to finish the review until just recently.  I'm still not sure if I will continue with book club reviews, but since this review was mostly complete, I decided to post it.
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Image from amazon.com

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls was the June 2013 book club choice we reviewed and it was a good discussion that was facilitated with questions I found online. I’m not sure if I’ll continue to review book club books and/or if I will write the reviews before or afterwards.  It could be an interesting comparison to write my review before and see what I think of it after the discussion with the club.  Food for thought for now, but for the time being an FYI for this blog.

SPOILER ALERT - Note, there is some discussion of some of the stories in this review that you may want to experience raw, hence I am labeling this a spoiler alert!

Synopsis - click here 

This book was heartbreaking, but the entire time I was rooting for Jeanette Walls.  Curiosity got the best of me and within the first story (a 3 year old cooking hot-dogs and setting her polyester dress on fire), I looked up Jeanette Walls and the creation of this book and quickly learned that Jeanette Walls was a successful journalist and now writes full time.  Despite this information, I found these stories unbelievably difficult to imagine, heartbreaking to read, but yet very brave for writing them and telling the world her story. 

Ms. Walls opens with a story of watching her mother and father sorting through trash bins in New York City from afar (I believe it was a taxi cab), ashamed of what she is observing.  Ms. Walls opens the novel with this story, but it’s not the shock value alone that gets you.  The story also serves to intrigue the reader to understand why her parents choose a lifestyle of homelessness and most importantly, why Ms. Walls appears to be living in drastically better circumstances than her own parents.  This stark contrast sucked me into this novel, that’s for sure.

Throughout the memoir, there are many difficult stories.  Eating out of the trash at school and dumpsters, a mother hiding and stealing food from her children, dire living conditions including no running water or electricity, coaxing your own mother to go to work so there’s enough money for the family, and so on.  But despite the desperate-ness of these stories, Jeanette Walls shows deep love and admiration (especially in her younger years) for her parents, especially her father.  The relationship Ms. Walls has with her father, being his favorite child, is the hardest thing to wrap your head around.  How can Ms. Walls love her father so much, but not have her most basic needs provided for?  Is it because she doesn't know any better, this is the hand life has dealt? After thinking and discussing with my book club, I think that Jeanette Walls’ father intended to be a good father, but he didn't have the knowledge.  Mr. Walls' upbringing was arguably worse than the one he provided for his own family.   

Another interesting point of discussion at book club was Jeanette's mother, Mary and whether she fulfilled her role as a mother.  We debated quite a bit in the group if she could be called a mother, some were on the fence while others were positive she had not fulfilled her duties as a mother.  I landed on the fence.  On one hand, her children's basic needs were clearly not taken care of and she let her children (especially Jeanette Walls) be in the middle of her messy relationship with her husband, Rex.  On the other hand, she was the one who was able to provide when Rex was drinking and gambling, albeit the children themselves had to convince her to go to work!  Mary also had a heavy hand in their love for reading (their father did too) and art, and I believe her children's success was heavily influenced by this environment she encouraged and provided.

I highly recommend reading this book, it's well written and it's such an interesting story that while I can't relate to it directly, provides another perspective on how life may be lived. I also think this is a great selection for a book club as there are so many topics and stories to discuss and the interpretation of them is bound to be different from person to person, thus generating interesting discussion and a fun book club event!