Review: Wild

I will begin by saying that I'm not a "wilderness-adventure" type of girl. I don't make my own gluten-free trail mix or use a BPA-free water bottle, and I definitely don't wear those creepy shoe/socks that have the toes peeking out. I enjoy hiking (look at me being outdoorsy to your left! I am so adventurous!) and heck, I'll even camp a night or two if the occasion demands and Smore's will be eaten. But, don't you dare expect me to pack up everything I own and live on a trail for 6 months.

So...when I decided to read Wild, it was less about relating to the hiking experience and mostly because I wanted to watch the movie and my English Major past wouldn't let me watch it without first divulging into the book. Despite my love for hygiene and hatred for bugs and outdoor sleeping arrangements, I was surprised to find myself loving a book that took two pages to describe how to purify water for drinking. The book is, first and foremost, about the grueling task of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), but it's also about a girl grieving over a failed marriage, dead mother, and overall loss of drive and direction in her life. I listened to the audiobook this past weekend as my family and I made the 5 hour journey to Northeast Pennsylvania. And maybe it was the fact that we were headed to a funeral or maybe it was just my emotional self listening to beautiful and heartbreaking dialogue escape the narrator, but I found myself sobbing on Highway 95 North when Cheryl Strayed (the author) described her mother dying of cancer. I didn't think I could get emotionally attached to a voice coming out of my radio since it's such a different experience than reading a book, but I was so incredibly moved by Cheryl's story that I broke down and cried when she painfully explained her mother's agonizing passing. I was shameless in my breakdown and apologize if any fellow DC drivers witnessed that hot mess from their car windows.

I had diverged, digressed, wandered, and become wild. I didn't embrace the word as my new name because it defined negative aspects of my circumstances or life, but because even in my darkest days--those very days in which I was naming myself--I saw the power of the darkness. Saw that, in fact, I had strayed and that I was a stray and that from the wild places my straying had brought me, I knew things I couldn't have known before.

The entirety of the book was so refreshing, because like myself, Cheryl was not a hiker or outdoorsy girl when she decided to complete the 2,650 mile trail. She failed multiple times on the trail (unable to purify her water, not reaching her camping site, her shoes breaking) and was faced with many instances of almost quitting, but despite her extreme inexperience, she completed the trail. I loved the inspirational story of a girl who has lost everything, but can find herself while alone in the beauty of nature. Maybe it was the situations she went through that I found myself relating to the narrator but from her lowest lows to highest highs on the trail, I felt connected to the author throughout the book.

I then watched the movie of course! I have to say that as far as movies after books go (always awful), this one was pretty dang great. I thought Reese definitely deserved an award for her acting performance, she was fantastic. The film incorporated a lot of the book which I appreciated and though I was very curious how they cinematically would go from the character's traumatic childhood to adulthood as seamlessly as the book, they did an excellent job.

Lastly, I will leave you with the quote below. It's so simple but I love it. You don't have to hike for six months to find adventure or challenge yourself. Everyday, just living your normal life, you are met with challenges and adventures that define you. There's a wildness and fear in just stepping back and letting things be (Can I copyright that for a poster?....I should know these things, I am a paralegal after all...oops).

How wild it was, to let it be.

         Rating: 4 out 5 Books

            

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Review: All The Light We Cannot See (no spoilers)

 I thought it was only right to have my first official book review be on a newer novel that has quickly become one of my all time favorite books.
This novel has truly blown me away. I literally LOL'd in my car listening to the audiobook, cried all over the pages as I read it before bed and just absorbed every bit of it in absolute awe. Every line written by the author, Anthony Doerr, is so melodically enchanting that he was somehow able to make war torn France sound like it still had some sparkle to it. 

To rewind, the book bounces between 1940 and 1944 every so chapters and mainly follows the life of a blind French girl named Marie Laure and the life of a German boy named Werner (although there are some other big characters throughout the book). It's fascinating to read about how two people on complete opposite sides of the war could actually have so much in common. When the war breaks out, Marie Laure is taken away from Paris, the museum her father works in, and everything known as "home" to her and she is placed on the sea of France where she must start anew. Likewise, Werner is a poor orphan destined to work in the mines the remainder of his life, until his intellect and the impending war get him a job with the Nazis working with radio and electronic repair. Both children (and I say children although they are about 16) have to leave behind everything they know and begin again because of World War Two. You see throughout the novel how their paths intersect and the toll the war takes on the both of them.

I don't want to include any spoilers in my reviews because I merely want them to act as an introduction you may decide to read or reject, but I will touch on one of the more powerful moments in the novel.

While at training school to become a Nazi solider, Werner is dragged out of his bunk, along with the other students, in the middle of the freezing winter to observe a prisoner. The book does not specify if the man is a Jewish person, and is only described by Werner as looking "Russian or Polish," but one can quickly infer the prisoner has escaped a concentration camp. Each student lines up and proceeds to take a bucket of water and dump it on the prisoner until he is soon frozen to death. It is such a powerful scene because Werner knows it is incredibly wrong and that he shouldn't do it, but he does it anyway.

When his turn arrives, Werner throws the water like all the others and the splash hits the prisoner in the chest and a perfunctory cheer rises. He joins the cadets waiting to be released. Wet boots, wet cuffs; his hands have become so numb, they do not seem his own.

That last line gives me absolute chills! The nerd in me is overwhelmed by the metaphor between how Werner has lost feeling in his hands and also lost feeling in his soul. But, I will not bore you with a literary review and just conclude that as a writer myself, I was amazed at the way the author was able to weave all the different story lines together and make them cohesive. 


One of my favorite lines from the book, which is often repeated is, “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever."

It of course relates perfectly not only to Marie Laure on a literal level because she is blind, but to how Werner is so quick to turn a blind eye to the monstrosities he commits with the Nazis. The book is brilliant and I proudly give it 5 out of 5 books.

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