As I close this book, I feel “shattered,” a word that Strayed uses several times. As a reader, I feel as if I have gone through an incredible experience that has to end, but I can’t bear for it to end, to leave me back in my own life. As a writer, I’m awed by Strayed’s talent and so so jealous. Wild is the true story of Strayed’s journey on the Pacific Crest trail, which runs along the mountains from Mexico through California, Oregon and Washington to just beyond the Canadian border. Newly divorced and grieving her mother’s death from cancer, just coming out of a wild tumble through men and heroin, she decides to hike this trail. With no real backpacking experience, she makes the trip alone, encountering wonderful people and scenery but also problems that frequently make it look as if she can’t possibly survive. It’s a hell of story, already optioned for a movie, I hear. Everyone seems to be saying this is the best book they have ever read. Ditto.