wild [guest post]

My daughter, who brought me this book, wrote the following about it: Wild is a book whose title might hint at more than it truly contains. This book is the story of a young woman hiking along the PCT, the Pacific Crest Trail, a very long hiking path in America. This young woman will quickly realize that she is not trained enough for this kind of adventure, but far from turning back she keeps going toward the aim she set herself. She meets many people on they way, either walking on the road or living in towns where she receives packages of supply she sent herself. This book is original in that it is not written by an expert hiker and hence it allows us to discover with the author how to manage the PCT. At the end of the novel we are almost surprised that she succeeded thanks to a large amount of luck. Wild is a realistic novel that makes us eager to embark on the journey! To have this adventure. It shows us a really wild side of today’s world, away from electronics, news, and today’s materialistic culture. How to cope with loneliness, hunger, dirt, cold, fear, injury, bad guys, orienteering … A book that details minutely every day at first and then accelerates toward the end. This is a very long journey, as one becomes aware at the beginning, but as the days go by, it seems less and less hard, which is probably an effect intended by the author, but it seems rather frustrating to me. I am rather lost with all these characters that come and go, it’s hard to remember them when they reappear in the narrative. For once, the heroine does not find an easy way through difficulties, which is what makes it a more realistic novel. Despite a too large number of uninteresting details about her life before the PCT, this book made me discover this trail and drove me to hope to hike it one day…