Cheryl Strayed

A short, taut, Swiss Army knife [book] of quotations, one that applies to deciding whether to have a third doughnut or an extramarital affair, make a mean-spirited joke—or get up from the desk before a book review is finished. Cheryl Strayed is a tough-love truth-teller. In the introduction she writes that a good quote can provide in a sentence or two ‘a clear eyed perspective, or a swift kick in the pants.’ Hers do both. Brave Enough amount[s] to a galvanizing call to be bigger, bolder, more generous. We already know what to do, Strayed believes; we just need to heed that inner voice . . . ‘I believe in the power of words to help us reset our intentions, clarify our thoughts, and create a counternarrative to the voice of doubt in our heads—the one that says, You can’t, you won’t, you shouldn’t have,’ she writes. [This book] helps you create that counternarrative. [It shouts,] ‘Yes!

An elegantly bound collection of Strayed sayings, ranging from a few words to entire paragraphs . . . Strayed earned cult status with her anonymous advice column, ‘Dear Sugar,’ on The Rumpus. She has become the unlikely queen of a different bookstore aisle than she expected, a guru whose message is anything but simple or glib. Rather, she tends towards emphasizing how deeply flawed we human beings are, and how we have to keep trying to be better anyway, even as life throws slings, arrows, and tremendous grief our way.

Captivating. Personal authenticity, gender politics, leaning into the light: whether writing a book or speaking one-to-one, Strayed seems above all unapologetically herself . . . The power of her words is palpable—and far-reaching

Gorgeous, a little 135-page gem. The one book every woman must read this year. The stop-whatever-you’re-doing-and-read-this-now book, in which every turn of phrase is tattoo-worthy, every tidbit of wisdom too good not to share with every single one of your girlfriends. It’s the kind of book that makes your highlighters run out of ink, and your Post-Its run out of stick. In the 100-plus quotes, thoughts, words of wisdom, and tidbits of beauty that Strayed has compiled, you will recognize yourself over and over again, in the best and worst and most essential ways .

Strayed’s relationship with her environment is humble and respectful, not exploitative. The landscape she travails is not a prop for her self-actualization, but a real, physical world that bewilders her, a world in which she learns she can survive bewilderment. . . . Strayed bears the torn feet and bruised back of a true pilgrim. Hers is high-voltage prose that challenges any preconceived notions about what it means to be a woman alone, and what it means to journey. . . . Wild will gather you up with its tenderness. It will flay you with its honesty.

A deeply honest memoir about mother and daughter, solitude and courage, and regaining footing one step at a time.

Brilliant. . . . Cheryl Strayed emerges from her grief-stricken journey as a practitioner of a rare and vital vocation. She has become an intrepid cartographer of the human heart.

Strayed writes a crisp scene; her sentences hum with energy. She can describe a trail-parched yearning for Snapple like no writer I know. . . . It becomes impossible not to root for her.

A fearless story, told in honest prose that is wildly lyrical as often as it is dirtily physical.

Strayed . . . catalogs her epic hike . . . with a raw emotional power that makes the book difficult to put down. . . . In walking, and finally, years later, in writing, Strayed finds her way again. And her path is as dazzlingly beautiful as it is tragic.

Strayed’s journey was at least as transcendent as it was turbulent. She faced down hunger, thirst, injury, fatigue, boredom, loss, bad weather, and wild animals. Yet she also reached new levels of joy, accomplishment, courage, peace, and found extraordinary companionship.

Brave seems like the right word to sum up this woman and her book. . . . Strayed’s journey is exceptional.

Vivid, touching and ultimately inspiring account of a life unraveling and of the journey that put it back together.

Incisive and telling. . . . [Strayed] has the ineffable gift every writer longs for of saying exactly what she means in lines that are both succinct and poetic . . . an inborn talent for articulating angst and the gratefulness that comes when we overcome it.

Devastating and glorious. . . . By laying bare a great unspoken truth of adulthood—that many things in life don’t turn out the way you want them to, and that you can and must live through them anyway—Wild feels real in many ways that many books about ‘finding oneself’ . . . do not.

Pretty much obliterated me. I was reduced, during the book’s final third, to puddle-eyed cretinism. . . . As loose and sexy and dark as an early Lucinda Williams song. It’s got a punk spirit and makes an earthy and American sound. . . . The cumulative welling up I experienced during Wild was partly a response to that too infrequent sight: that of a writer finding her voice, and sustaining it, right in front of your eyes.

Strayed’s language is so vivid, sharp and compelling that you feel the heat of the desert, the frigid ice of the High Sierra, and the breathtaking power of one remarkable woman finding her way—and herself—one brave step at a time.

An addictive, gorgeous book that not only entertains, but leaves us the better for having read it. . . . Strayed is a formidable talent.

Spectacular. Wild is at once a breathtaking adventure tale and a profound meditation on the nature of grief and survival...Strayed’s load is both literal and metaphorical—so heavy that she staggers beneath its weight. Often when narratives are structured in parallel arcs, the two stories compete and one dominates. But in Wild, the two tales Strayed tells, of her difficult past and challenging present, are delivered in perfect balance. Rather, it started out as an experience that was lived, digested and deeply understood.

A rich, riveting true story...Reading her matter-of-fact take on love and grief and the soul-saving quality of a Snapple lemonade, you can understand why Strayed has earned a cult following as the author of Dear Sugar, a popular advice column on therumpus.net...With its vivid descriptions of beautiful but unforgiving terrain, Wild is a cinematic story...Our verdict: A.

One of the most original, heartbreaking and beautiful American memoirs in years...The unlikely journey is awe-inspiring, but it’s one of the least remarkable things about the book. Strayed, who was recently revealed as the anonymous author of the Dear Sugar advice column of the literary website The Rumpus, writes with stunningly authentic emotional resonance—Wild is brutal and touching in equal measures, but there’s nothing forced about it. She chronicles sorrow and loss with unflinching honesty, but without artifice or self-pity.