Girl in the Woods

I am a bit torn when it comes to this book. The writing is absolutely beautiful– Aspen is truly talented and gifted when it comes to penning words. Her descriptions and observations are so sharp when they’re objective that it feels like you’re standing there with her. People spend decades honing the kind of voice and talent that rises naturally to her.

I started out empathizing a lot with our narrator. Her mother sounds like classic waif-type BPD. My step-mom was a witch type but I understood the stifling, unhealthy pressure that Aspen had to operate under, the damage that a lifetime from birth of being overly cocooned so you doubt your own abilities to an insane degree.

I kept turning the pages and looking for growth as she progressed along the trail and I did not find it. I find that disappointing. Aspen apparently found it in herself but what I saw was a woman hungry for male validation seek it until she found it. Did she think she was the only woman on the trail who had been raped or molested? Did she think she was the only one hurting?

Her treatment of fellow women on the trail is abhorrent. She reduces them to sexual desirability and then writes off the men who may care for them as “losers”, as if everyone out there is slavish to sexual approval the way she is. It’s debasing not just to the women who were on the PCT that year, it’s debasing to the men who she assumed were unable to care for women outside of their sexual output. Aspen only tentatively grasped at the very end of her journey what a trail family is, but leading up she had nothing but derision, suspicion, and hatred for the women who had their own. The kindest things she said about women on the trail was when she said nothing at all. That is not the fault of those women, but the fault of Aspen.

Aspen forgives her family and it was cathartic to see that, but in the end she’s still the very self-centered, overly judgmental person she started out as. Expecting everyone to shower her with empathy while providing exactly none. As beautiful as her writing is, I never got the impression that her thoughts ever strayed to the plight, feelings, and being of other people.

I am not surprised she was not welcome in the groups that form up along the trail. She started her hike a marred woman and she ended it a marred woman. She tries to present like she healed and came out stronger.. I think that’s an enormous lie. Maybe in some ways she came out stronger, but she left the woods the same as she entered– reliant upon the validation of men no matter how toxic, at the expense of other women. This is a sad book, and it’s all the sadder because I don’t think the author realizes how sad it is.

As previous reviewers mention, this is not the story of self-discovery and self-reliance that one might hope for. In reading the description, I was hopeful that this would be a memoir about the recovery of a young woman who had experienced a trauma and went to the woods to heal. That isn’t really this book. Aspen spends the majority of the text seeking male approval from nearly every man she meets on the trail and desperately looking for validation, which doesn’t do much for the “girl power” aspirations of the premise.

I want to stress the privilege that Aspen has to experience the PCT the way she does and to survive. Often it is from sheer dumb luck or the benevolence of others, but her primary privilege comes from the generosity and kindness of her parents. Yes, they didn’t react in the perfect way when she told them about her rape, but they also spent thousands of dollars on her journey of self-exploration and she appears terribly ungrateful. I also find it frustrating that the end of the text focuses on Aspen changing her relationship with her parents, which is a theme that appears nearly out of thin air. Obviously they are flawed, but by drawing attention to them Aspen only highlights her flaws.

This of course brings up the point that Aspen as a character is often deeply unlikable. I began the book feeling empathetic towards her and ended it being annoyed. She makes decisions that put her in danger, speaks down to most of the folks she meets on the trail, and generally doesn’t take responsibility for her actions. She places much of the blame for her problems on her mother’s coddling and the trauma that she experienced, never taking accountability. As far as character development, there is some, but it wasn’t really as dramatic as I would have liked. I was really hoping she would come out the end of the trail as self-reliant, responsible, mature, and aware of her privilege. I desperately wanted her to show her parents some gratitude. Apparently that was too much to ask. Additionally, while there are some moments of beautiful prose, I found the writing to reflect the writer’s immaturity and inexperience.

After reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed, I was really looking forward to this book. I was hugely disappointed and found this book to be one of the worst books I have read in years. I am only giving it one star as you can’t give zero or even 1/2 stars. How can this book be so awful? A woman goes on a treacherous hike clearly unprepared mentally and physically. Not only that, but she does everything she says she’s not going to do! She wants to go to a big pre-hike event – writes about how much she’s looking forward to it and then skips it because she meets a random guy she finds cute? This after being raped by a random guy. Seriously!? She wants to hike alone but stays with this boy and another man. The other boy is clearly sexist and racist but never ever says anything to him? Wow. She keeps writing she wants to be alone but is constantly – CONSTANTLY looking for boys (after she dumps boy #1) and sex and people to hike with. Unreal. I understand she went on this hike to sort herself out after the rape, but she continuously put herself in dangerous situations and I found myself not having any sympathy for her whatsoever. You are hiking a serious trail without serious food or a compass? You know you are out of water but don’t ask for some from someone who has plenty? This read more like a psychotic’s romance adventure novel than a memoir. Please skip this and read Wild instead. Absolutely horrible.

There is no doubt that there are several themes in this worthwhile book: rape, an over loving mother and distant father, a girl who didn’t know how to grow up.

Rape is the central theme: the author was raped and let down as she tried to get her world to help her to overcome the trauma: nothing helped.

Her mother mollycoddled her because she knew no different and could do no different. Her father ignored her most of the time and she resented that, as we all would.

She took a walk that could have killed her and this is the story of that walk and what it did to and for her: she grew from mollycoddled girl to independent woman.

The walk and the book are cathartic yet every step of the way there was always the feeling that she had no idea how to manage anything: clothes, food, walking … anything. But she gets there.

There is hurt, anger and heartache in this book. Then there is redemption, revelation and love. I have to say there is a lot of repetition here: reminding us of her rape, her over bearing mother, her distant father.

Reading on kindle I added notes: well done … You’re asking for it now … How true …

In the end, having found her perfect man, she is living alone as the man has gone. She is strong, liberated and free and she loves her mother!

I have never felt this way before but before I bought the book and even now, I would like to meet Aspen. I walked with her all the way and I will search out her other work now but I think meeting here will always remain a dream!

I thought that I was reading a Mills and Boom or Barbra Cartland noval. And thinking about the Ugly Duckling song. Did she really nearly die five times.

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