Book Review- Cheryl Strayed's Wild (From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail)

Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild is exactly the type of book that appeals to me. I love stories of people setting off on adventures and I also feel connected to stories of grief and attempts to find a place in the world.

After her mother's death, Strayed found herself in her early twenties and falling apart. Her once close-knit family took an isolationist approach to grief and grew distant. Strayed dropped out of college just shy of graduation, cheated on her husband and turned to heroin. She found a guide-book to backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail, a trail that stretches from Mexico to Canada and although inexperienced, decided to give it a shot.

Strayed saved money from waitressing jobs, bought what she thought was proper gear and planned ahead, parceling out money and supplies sent ahead to post offices along the route. She decided to spend a few months along the trail from Death Valley, California to Portland Oregon. Strayed soon learned all of the book information and hiking tips from REI, did not adequately prepare her for this journey.

The brilliance in this memoir is Strayed ability to write about her life in a way that is so relatable. She exposes herself, warts and all, and her vulnerability makes her so likeable. It made me root for her to succeed on her journey, even though she has made some monumental mistakes in her life. She doesn't gloss over the spousal cheating and drug use. She doesn't make excuses or ask the reader to forgive her. She just exposes herself and it makes the reader accept her past, but love her for the person that she will become, as we get to be part of watching the transformation.

This book is exciting. It's filled with plenty of action and tense moments, as the trail is a harsh place and Strayed is definitely unprepared. Besides Strayed's story, the book is interesting because it exposes a subset of society, those who backpack on these trails. It's a culture and it's fascinating. Strayed makes plenty of friends on her adventure and each has an interesting story of why they are on the PCT. The PCT is its own character that's constantly changing and filled with surprises.

Strayed's memoir is rooted in grief and is very healing. It made me cry, in several places. I had been reading it during my lunch breaks at work, but found it to be so emotional, that I finished it in the privacy of my home. The emotional passages hit me like a ton of bricks and were hard to predict where they would fall in the book. They are profound and sprinkled throughout. Strayed is very self-aware and has a knack for keen observations often leading to profound statements.

This book is a must read.

Book Review- Freeman Hall's Retail Hell

In Retail Hell, author Freeman Hall recounts his fifteen years selling handbags at a major department store that he has named "The Big Fancy". If you do a minimal amount of digging, it's easy to figure out the store and location of his former employer. This also happens to be my former employer and location, which made reading this book all the more interesting and held me back from writing this review until I had resigned.

The book was highly entertaining to read and I breezed right through it. It is all very heightened for comedic effect or possible a result of his frustrations. I actually felt like some of the customers in the book, had to be the same customers that I have helped in my department. I have read other reviews that criticized Hall as being racist in his descriptions of the customers. He does have some cringe worthy descriptions and should have treaded more carefully. However, I feel like Hall was trying to vent his frustrations and went about it the wrong way. The store is located in a very multicultural community and one that has heavy tourism traffic. This can be a mixed blessing. On the upside, it's great to meet people from all over the world. On the downside, it's often exceedingly frustrating to communicate with language and cultural barriers. You quickly learn that different cultures have different expectations when it comes to the shopping experience and sometimes those expectations clash with store policies! I could relate to Hall's frustrations.

Hall's dealings with his fellow coworkers and managers did not match with my experience. It seems that there has been a recent management overhaul. I was with the company for 4 1/2 months and had nothing but positive experiences with management. I also really liked the a majority of my coworkers, both in my immediate department and the adjacent departments. Having spent many years in the work force, I think this job is like any other job, it goes through cycles of good and bad times.

Although clever the first couple of times, I didn't care for Hall's overuse of the Screenplay format. It was creative the first time and then felt like a gimmick and filler to lengthen the book. It was unnecessary and killed the pacing.

There was a section in Hall's book that struck a chord with me and was ultimately a catalyst in my resignation. He wrote about his dreams of screenwriting and how working in retail hell left him too exhausted to get anything done. I spent my entire time with the company feeling completely physically and mentally drained. I've never had a job take so much out of me. I've also never put so much in for so little return. I've been told by many long time employees that it used to be a lucrative job. When the economy was strong and when the buyers were picking great merchandise, everyone in the store was making really great money. Times are different now.

Hall made me see that I was pushing aside family, friends and dreams for a job that was giving me so little in return. This is not a bash on The Big Fancy, as there seem to be many people who are happy working there. There are many people who enjoy working with fashion and customer service. I am in a lucky position to be able to take the time to find a job that will make me happy.

I loved Hall's Tips for Shoppers. Yes, Yes, Yes!!! Learn and live by those rules!

Book Review- Meg Abbott's Dare Me

I was motivated to buy Megan Abbott's Dare Me based on a positive magazine review. In usually don't go for non-fiction crime or mystery stories, but this one caught my eye and I am glad it did.

Abbott's novel centers around a group of high school cheerleaders, whose dynamics shift when a new coach is brought into their lives. The murder mystery aspect of the book is secondary to the relationship between the girls and the coach.

This book is cringe worthy. The interplay between the girls with each other, the girls with men and the girls with their coach is all very uncomfortable. None of the characters in the book are likeable. The girls spend an inordinate amount of time focused on cutting others down to rise on the pecking order. The coach, in her late twenties and in a very unhappy marriage, isn't better than her young charges. She gets herself in the thick of the teenage drama, as she attempts to fit in and revert back to her youth.

This story has characters who cross boundaries left and right. Nothing is even remotely appropriate!

Although it's highly uncomfortable to read, this book is impossible to put down. It's a page turner, in a pulpy beach read sort of way. I bought it for my flight to Canada and plowed right through it, thoroughly enjoying it.

I am not sure if the characters ring true or if it even matters. I went to an arts high school and nothing about the characters rings true to my experience. I hope that the characters are not common place in most high schools or a true reflection of teenagers today, that would be scary!

I absolutely recommend this book and look forward to reading more of Abbott's novels.