Wild: From Lost to Found on The Pacific Crest Trail {Book Club}

This month our book club read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. Wild is a memoir written by a women whose life is set into a tailspin at age twenty-two after losing her young mother to cancer. Cheryl describes her failed attempts at keeping her siblings and her marriage together. Feeling lost and broken, she recounts her escapades with drugs and sex as a means of escaping reality for the reader. After being pulled out of a relationship fueled by saddness and heroin by her ex-husband and with nothing left to lose, Cheryl embarks on a 1100-mile journey along the Pacific Crest Trail – from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon and to Washington State – alone. With little experience as a hiker and no experience as a long-distance backpacker, Cheryl is challenged with skin rubbed raw from her backpack, intense heat, record snowfalls, bears and snakes, hunger, and the enjoyment and loneliness of solitude. While traveling along the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl shares her story of self realization and healing.

To create an ambiance for us to recall Cheryl’s journey on the PCT trail and inspire conversation for our discussion of the book, we decided to draw certain key elements from the book and use them in the food and decor! We were fortunate to hold this month’s meeting at Pages {A Bookstore} in Manhattan Beach for the second month in a row, as it is a ideal location for discussing books!

Decor Ideas:

• Sunflowers in Mason Jars
• Slate serving trays (I got these for no cost at a stone yard! I simply asked the owner for scrap pieces!)
• Hiking Boots
• Lanterns
• Yellow and Orange Ribbons
• Tin Buckets
• Faux Packages Addressed to Cheryl Strayed

Menu Items:

Granola Parfait

The book discussion revealed that our group had mixed review on this memoir. Some members sympathized with Cheryl’s hardships and felt empathetic for her yearning to escape her day-to-day life to “find herself,”  by her escape to the “Wild”. Other members felt the book fell short and didn’t maintain their attention.

Have you read Wild by Cheryl Strayed? Share your thoughts as a comment!