Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Cheryl Strayed is a capable writer and as I finished the first few chapters I became a fan. I began recommending the book to my friends and family. Her description of her mother dying of cancer was beautifully written and hit like a gut punch. I thought, wow, this writer has potential. But as I progressed through the book I felt a gnawing sense that this was not a work of pure fact, and prone to flights of fancy and embellishment. The dialog seemed contrived and wooden at times as the book wore on. Her apparent desire to saddle up with just about any guy she bumped into seemed curious at first, began to wear thin later, and was off-putting by the end. Some encounters read like more a cheap Harlequin romance novel than reality. By the time she encounters bow hunters on the Oregon Crest Trail, she lost me. They admire her sinewy legs under her tight jeggings (I'm embellishing for effect here). They're hiking for the day but they're carrying huge backpacks. They've each consumed a six pack of Pepsi but they're dehydrated and disoriented. They leave but one of them returns to leer at her and accuse her of lying about where she was going to camp. As I read the scene I felt like I was watching Burt Reynolds in Deliverance, "You got a nice mouf". Like someone that's told you a string of faintly troubling white lies, the stink of poor credibility finally overwhelmed me. I got the sense that she created plot devices and embellished stories as a means to punctuate her experiences north of the California border. I've hiked much of the Oregon and Washington Pacific Crest Trail system. So I'm familiar with what it's like to be on the trail for 3-4 weeks at a time. And there are elements of Strayed's book that resonated. The contrast between what you *think* you'll be doing - sleeping soundly under the stars, and constantly staring in wonder at spectacular vistas, versus what you actually do - stare at the trail or your trail-mate's boots as you watch for every root and rock that threatens to trip you up. The monotony of long distance hiking. Spending the day slogging to the top of a ridge, only to immediately lose the altitude dropping down the other side. The morning ritual of hoisting "The Stone" ("Monster" for Cheryl) up onto your still-sore shoulders. The curt efficiency with which you learn to set up and break down camp each day. The day to day management of your feet. The search for potable water. But her account does raise questions too. How do you hike the length of the Oregon Crest Trail and not mention mosquitos? Why is it that Strayed primarily discusses the parts of the trail that are accessible by car: Crater Lake, Ollalie Lake, Elk Lake, Jefferson Park, Timberline Lodge? How in the freaking world do you hike down the Eagle Creek Trail without a mention of Twister Falls, Tunnel Falls, and Punchbowl Falls?! Holy crap, this is one of the most amazing sections of trail in the Pacific Northwest. Hop, skip, jump and Oregon is done. As if Ms. Strayed was struggling with how to wind this thing down, or perhaps she hitched her way around portions of the trail in Oregon too? There are about a half-dozen recurring motifs on the trail: her desire for sex, the admiration of others as they heft her Monster backpack or marvel at her bravery, reflections on her childhood, her poor money management at drop-box sites and her abused feet. I've lost toenails to running and hiking, but Cheryl's toenail count and the way that they seem to come off, like Jeff Goldblum's ear in The Fly, began to feel artificially injected. And like the other recurring motifs, seem perfunctory and dropped in to spice up the monotony of the trail. Only Ms. Strayed knows for sure how much of the book is Pants On Fire and how much is Mostly True. And, in the end, I guess that wouldn't have mattered much if it had led to a compelling conclusion. Disappointingly, though, we never learn how she went from a self-abusive, impulsive life of sex, "Riding the Dragon" experimentation with heroin, and anger at her upbringing, to living in a happy, stable marriage with children in Portland, Oregon. The last two pages breeze through that transformation in the same way the movie, The Abyss, closes (the alien ship rises to the surface, Ed Harris proclaiming that he should've died of decompression sickness but, "it must be something the aliens did" and he's ok. Hooray, the world is saved). After chapters of build up we learn that life is what it is and Cheryl lives happily ever after. The End.