I both enjoyed and loathed this book. I enjoyed the exploration of the wilderness. I despised Cheryl. She was as dislikable as Eat Pray Love. She is a girl with everything before her, all sorts of potential. But when her mother dies she just goes into an unexplained self-destructive spiral. She ruins her marriage for no reason. She does heroin for no reason. She just blasts her life apart....why? And then she sets out on this insane wilderness walk. And bitches. The. Whole. Time. She wants to be "a tough Amazonian queen". Please. There are kids in African running from lions barefoot. You're walking a mountain trail in expensive boots. I just had zero sympathy for her. She walks thru this entire book with no weapon, and nothing bad really happens to her. She hitchhikes, she goes home with strangers, she takes drinks from weirdos. I feel like this book is a poster for what you should never do. Never go into a months-long hike without actually preparing. Never go alone, especially as woman. Never take rides from strangers! Omg. She does everything I was told at an early age would get me killed. I am not denying that long-distance hiking is a challenge or is easy. It is. No doubt. But please don't expect me to rah-rah for you when you ruined your own life before doing this crazy feat to save yourself.
Was I supposed to feel inspired? Because I didn't. I wanted to strangle Cheryl. I only enjoyed this remotely because she wrote well about the journey and the scenery.
Giving it 3 stars, which is generous. Really more like 2, but the landscape was pretty.
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