Last week you ready about how to pick the perfect book for your reading pleasure. This week, we had to share why Daniela Forte (our blogger) and author of Books from my Closet, liked WILD.

I FINALLY finished “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed. It only took like half a year! Haha. Anyway, I wanted to share some of my final thoughts on the book, before I move on.

I thought the book overall, was decent. I admit, I found myself bored at times, often expecting more than what was actually revealed. I had a hard time separating her from author Elizabeth Gilbert’s “get away from life and find yourself” journey in “Eat, Pray, Love.” I had to keep remembering these were two different people with two different life experiences.

But what tied these two women together was bravery. Stopping their lives for however long and doing something extraordinary that only most of us talk about doing.

Cheryl’s excursion seemed more rigorous and less romantic. It was dirty, it was hard and it was at times damn near impossible. But that’s life too isn’t it? Life isn’t always going to be this romantic journey, it’s going to be tough and sometime damn near impossible. She had to really work through her shit. And I mean work.

I often thought about how I’d be if I did this, deciding to leave my life for several months and go on a hike, I don’t think I could do it. I hardly feel I survive in the everyday monotony let alone surviving in the wilderness. I was never a good Girl Scout.

Through out the book I kept waiting for her to meet her man, again…comparing her to Elizabeth Gilbert in “Eat Pray Love.” Who did meet her man, who did have sex as she found herself in a foreign place.

This didn’t happen here, while Cheryl had urges and needs to be loved and joined by a man, it only briefly happened towards the tail end of the book. I was so happy, but it left me wanting more. I wanted her journey to end with her finding love, real love.

But maybe just the journey alone was enough, and it was everything after her hike through the Pacific Crest Trail that would lead her to where she needed to be.

Life is like that, sometimes you have to work through your shit, whether it is through a hike, or some other soul searching journey to get to the other side.

I recommend this book, I do. I think it’s for anyone who is really going through some stuff right now that really needs inspiration that whatever you set out in your life to do can be done.

#radiatedaily

image source – pixabay