finding my wild book review

Finding My Wild: Emotional retelling of a bittersweet homecoming and making peace with life

Journalist Kathy Donaghy’s first book follows her return to the rugged coast of Donegal where she grew up and her desperate struggle to mother a third child

• Peter Hegarty
• February 4, 2023

In sensual, clear prose, Kathy Donaghy’s memoir describes scenes from her childhood in Donegal: a frozen waterfall, “seas” of bluebells and snowdrops, the moonlit vastness of Lough Foyle, and an enormous salmon wrapped in newspaper.

The roaming girl who grew up with an Atlantic inlet on one side and the woods of Inishowen on the other, left for college in Dublin, but never thought she had gone for good. Sometimes the idea of return seemed ...

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Finding My Wild: Observations on love and forgiveness rooted in natural life of rural Ireland

Kathy donaghy’s turbulent and moving memoir is a deep and honest account of her complex experiences of motherhood.

Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal. Photograph: Getty Images/AWL Images RM

Inishowen is Ireland’s end, the island’s northern headland exposed to the scour of salt water from the north Atlantic. Faced with wild weather and lit by stormy sky, the setting is perfect for Kathy Donaghy’s turbulent and moving memoir, Finding My Wild.

Thanks to history and geography Inishowen has become one of Ireland’s lesser-known peninsulas, less travelled than modern-day Dingle, Mizen and Beara. Partly this is because even on a warm day the cold air cuts, partly because the communities who live there have such a deep experience of migration themselves. Donaghy was one such local who left school in Carndonagh for university and a career in journalism. That life led to travel, marriage and an urge to return that rose like a wave that threatened at times to overwhelm her and her growing family.

Finding My Wild is a deep and honest account of these unsettled years, which turn around Donaghy’s complex experiences of motherhood. She shares her stories with a clarity of self-reflection that is painful to read, and her observations on love, compulsion and forgiveness are powerful within a book that is rooted in the natural life of rural Ireland. This is a study of foxes, badgers, cormorants, seals and dolphins as much as it is a summary of education, home life and the health service.

Its poignant parts are those moments by the sea, which move from childhood adventures in rock pools to the adult plunge into cold water off Culdaff, which brings the memoir to a flowing close.

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Donaghy describes Lough Foyle as an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, turbulent and powerful. The same might hold for her book

Donaghy’s descriptions of being in the water are wonderful. Swimming is hardly the word to cover the body feeling the surge of sensations that seawater invites, and Donaghy captures this variousness with a delight that is equivalent to hope after all the pages of trauma and grief before.

There are passing glimpses of other histories too, of salmon fishing and seasonal migrations, human and bird, which hint at the diversity of Inishowen as a place in and of itself. Donaghy describes Lough Foyle as an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, turbulent and powerful. The same might hold for her book, Finding My Wild – a memoir and a reflection, a testimony and an act of self-forgiveness that we might all read and learn from.

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Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed – review

I n this hugely entertaining book, Cheryl Strayed takes the redemptive nature of travel – a theme as old as literature itself – and makes it her own. For three months she hiked 1,100 miles alone along the Pacific Crest Trail, a continuous wilderness undulating from Mexico to Canada over nine mountain ranges – the Laguna to the Cascades. She did it, she says, "in order to save myself".

An American raised in rural Minnesota, Strayed lost her beloved mother when she was 22. An abusive father had long ago vanished, and in the wake of their bereavement, Strayed's siblings and stepfather scattered and her marriage to a rather wonderful man collapsed as a result of her serial infidelities ("I'd smashed up my marriage over sex"). She was waitressing, servicing a student debt for a degree she failed to complete (she reckoned she would pay off the debt when she was 43), and then came Planet Heroin. In the wake of her divorce, she invented a new name for herself: Strayed. Because she had strayed. Four years after her mother's death, still "unmoored by sorrow", she packed a rucksack and flew to California. "Hiking the PCT," she writes, "was my way back to the person I used to be."

On her epic trek, this novice hiker faced temperatures of 100 degrees in the shade on the Modoc plateau and record snowfalls in the high sierras, not to mention bears, rattlesnakes and failed waterholes. The terrain was rarely easy: "Sometimes," writes Strayed, "it seemed that the Pacific Crest Trail was one long mountain I was ascending." Her boots died (she had already lost most of her toenails) and she made "duct-tape bootees" out of a pair of sandals while waiting for fresh boots to arrive in the middle of nowhere in a courier's box. When a branch snapped in the night outside her lonely tent, she made herself say out loud, "I am not afraid." For weeks she does not wash or wear knickers and, as a result, a shower at a lonely campsite turns into "an almost holy experience". The seasons change, and so does the landscape, but these pages contain little in the way of topographical description. It is the inner landscape that captures this unusual author.

The story of her past, and in particular her mother's harrowing death, unspools as a counter-narrative alongside the blisters and the bulky backpack she calls Monster. (The mother, clearly an extraordinary and inspiring figure, looms over this book like a ghost.) Wild follows Strayed's painful first steps as she averaged nine miles a day and learned how to use her gear (or didn't), to the happy weeks when her muscles were like ropes and she was lean, bronzed and hairy-legged. At staging posts on the trail – not towns but straggly outposts of civilisation – she picked up resupply boxes she had mailed to herself. Each contained $20, along with books, freeze-dried food and a clean T-shirt (she packed lacy underwear in the last box). At one point she describes herself as "hot, angry, sick of myself". I recognised that. How very sick of oneself one gets on the road.

Mostly, Strayed saw no one, but she is good on the peculiar intimacy one strikes up on chance encounters in strange parts, and the camaraderie on the trail, when freeze-dried noodles, Elastoplast and news of fresh snowfalls are exchanged in long nights around the camp fire. I enjoyed those passages immensely. Similarly, she writes well about the relationship one has with books when alone and travelling, though I was inevitably influenced in her favour by the fact that her writers are mine, notably Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. The latter would have admired Cheryl Strayed. In the evenings, after making camp, she sat with a pot of noodles gripped between her knees, spooning food in one hand and holding a book in the other, reading by the light of her miner's headlamp as the sky darkened. "I grew stronger," she writes as the weeks unfold. In short, she read herself out of a hole. And what are books for, if not that?

Wild tracks the physical changes as a body gets turned inside out in three months, and more interestingly, the prose reveals Strayed's return to sanity. Body image is a component of this last transformation. The author refers at several points to issues with weight that dogged her past, and to her confused attitude to her own physical appearance. At one point, at a PCT campsite, she sees herself in a cracked mirror for the first time in many weeks, and ends up "wondering whether I was a babe or a gargoyle". Many women will recognise that particular experience, and might take heart from the resolution Strayed finds in the course of her trip.

Sex is a leitmotif: Strayed likes it, and had packed condoms. Men are sized up as soon as they walk into the campsite and on to the page. About two-thirds of the way through the book, congress finally occurs, spreadeagled against a boulder on a beach, with honey and sand involved. Sex is one of the last taboos in women's travel writing, and I have noticed that male reviewers tend not to like it. They know, I hope, where they can stick their dislike, and well done Cheryl Strayed.

Despite the Wagnerian tempests that led to the journey, a quiet dignity inhabits the heart of this book, as Strayed takes on the Mojave desert and the wind-twisted foxtail pines at the foot of Mount Washington. There are longueurs in the story and stylistic infelicities in the prose. But she lobs in lots of yeasty direct speech to keep the book, like the journey, on the road. I can't wait for the film.

Strayed is 44 now: one senses that it has taken her this long to understand the true meaning of the journey – or perhaps she had to wait for certain people to die. At any rate, she is happily married with two children, her demons at bay, and her book, a New York Times bestseller, was taken up by Oprah (you can watch a Strayed  slideshow on the Oprah website). Towards the end of Wild , approaching journey's end at the Bridge of the Gods over the benighted Columbia River, the author writes: "I felt fierce and humble and gathered up inside, like I was safe in the world now." Lucky her.

Sara Wheeler's new book, O My America! Second Acts in a New World, will be published in March by Jonathan Cape

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Wild review – a two-hour hallucinatory montage

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Finding My Wild: How a Move to the Edge Brought Me Home

This unflinching memoir looks back at a decade of love and loss, of mothering, identity and ultimately healing. An ode to friendship, home and the extraordinary healing powers of immersing yourself in the natural world, especially the ocean.

Kathy Donaghy

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Finding My Wild

How a Move to the Edge Brought Me Home

This unflinching memoir looks back at a decade of love and loss, of mothering, identity and ultimately healing. An ode to friendship, home and the extraordinary healing powers of immersing yourself in the natural world, especially the ocean.

Category: Biography/Memoir

• Description
• Reviews (15)

‘Life had brought me to the edge of myself and here I was feeling like I was on the edge of the world.’

After moving back to her homeplace on the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal with her young family, journalist Kathy Donaghy’s life changed in ways she never saw coming. This unflinching memoir looks back at a decade of love and loss, of mothering, identity and ultimately healing. An ode to friendship, home and the extraordinary healing powers of immersing yourself in the natural world, especially the ocean.

Kathy Donaghy is an award-winning journalist who works as a freelance writer for the Irish Independent . Working as a journalist for almost thirty years, she was on the staff of the Irish Independent and RTÉ. Her work has appeared in other publications, including The Irish Times and The Sunday  Business Post .

She lives on the Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal with her husband, business journalist and RTÉ presenter Richard Curran, and their two sons, Dallan and Oirghiall. This is her first book.

utterly beautiful memoir Andrea Carter

A heartbeat of a book … that will speak to so many Ruth Fitzmaurice, author of I Found My Tribe

Kathy Donaghy shares her cache of wisdom about a pared-back life enriched by the countryside’s treasure trove. Her beautifully told chronicle is a testament to outcomes transformed by a leap of faith. Martina Devlin

An honest but beautiful account of losing yourself through life’s tragedies and finding yourself again in the wilds of your beloved homeland Niamh Fitzpatrick, author of Tell Me the Truth About Loss

Inishowen is Ireland’s end, the island’s northern headland exposed to the scour of salt water from the north Atlantic. Faced with wild weather and lit by stormy sky, the setting is perfect for Kathy Donaghy’s turbulent and moving memoir, Finding My Wild. Thanks to history and geography Inishowen has become one of Ireland’s lesser-known peninsulas, less travelled than modern-day Dingle, Mizen and Beara. Partly this is because even on a warm day the cold air cuts, partly because the communities who live there have such a deep experience of migration themselves. Donaghy was one such local who left school in Carndonagh for university and a career in journalism. That life led to travel, marriage and an urge to return that rose like a wave that threatened at times to overwhelm her and her growing family. Finding My Wild is a deep and honest account of these unsettled years, which turn around Donaghy’s complex experiences of motherhood. She shares her stories with a clarity of self-reflection that is painful to read, and her observations on love, compulsion and forgiveness are powerful within a book that is rooted in the natural life of rural Ireland. This is a study of foxes, badgers, cormorants, seals and dolphins as much as it is a summary of education, home life and the health service. Its poignant parts are those moments by the sea, which move from childhood adventures in rock pools to the adult plunge into cold water off Culdaff, which brings the memoir to a flowing close. Donaghy’s descriptions of being in the water are wonderful. Swimming is hardly the word to cover the body feeling the surge of sensations that seawater invites, and Donaghy captures this variousness with a delight that is equivalent to hope after all the pages of trauma and grief before. There are passing glimpses of other histories too, of salmon fishing and seasonal migrations, human and bird, which hint at the diversity of Inishowen as a place in and of itself. Donaghy describes Lough Foyle as an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, turbulent and powerful. The same might hold for her book, Finding My Wild - a memoir and a reflection, a testimony and an act of self-forgiveness that we might all read and learn from Irish Times

as she describes the tragedies, losses and sadnesses that invaded her life, she becomes searingly honest, her heart laid bare. Readers will empathise with the raw hurt. This book is the story of how she learned to heal and rediscover the girl she once was in the rugged, majestic landscape at the northernmost edge of Ireland … Donaghy’s awareness of the wilderness all around her is a delight, whether it is the creatures and plants in her area, the changing seasons, knowing a storm is coming by the wheeling gulls, waiting for the first snowdrops or breathing in the scent of summer meadows. Finding My Wild will not only resonate with readers who have suffered loss but also with anyone who has ever dreamed of an escape to the country Irish Independent

A wonderful read Miriam O’Callaghan, RTE Radio 1

moving memoir of loss, recovery and the healing power of the natural world, particularly the ocean Sunday Independent Madeleine Keane

Warm, inspiring and authentic, Finding My Wild had me ready to leap into a new adventure as soon as I finished the last page. It’s a welcome addition to the growing collection of books about rewilding, but from two needed and unique perspectives: mothering and grief. Kathy’s writing is a call with open arms to reacquaint ourselves with our wild side. And trust me, we all have one! The Tidal Year Freya Bromley

It’s a story that will resonate with most people, story of life changes, love and loss, which is pretty much all of us WLR FM’s Saturday Café with Maria McCann

The narrative … around the healing … is so refreshing to read KCLR’s The Saturday Show with Edward Hayden

The seed for Kathy Donaghy’s beautiful and unflinching memoir Finding My Wild was planted when, after moving back to her home in Donegal with her young family, her life was to change in ways she never saw coming. The award-winning journalists debut looks back at love and loss over a decade and how home and the healing powers of the natural world, especially the ocean, can help you find yourself once more Image Magazine

a most enjoyable read Connaught Telegraph

beautifully written memoir … healing in the power of nature, which is brilliantly evoked in this lyrical, insightful tribute to Ireland’s wild Atlantic landscape Business Post

a beautiful homage not just to the open sea but also the story of how nature and sea swimming helped the author overcome loss, tragedy and sadness Irish Independent

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FINDING MY PURPOSE IN AN UNTAMED WORLD

by Rae Wynn-Grant ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2024

This isn’t simply a nature book or memoir, but a memorable marriage of the two that will leave readers inspired.

A wildlife ecologist takes us on a journey of ambition, discovery, and inner acceptance.

From a study-abroad trip in Kenya as an undergraduate, to discovering endangered lemurs in a hidden Madagascar rainforest, to studying carnivores like the mountain lion and black bears in the U.S., Wynn-Grant, author of Tracking the American Black Bear , reveals her academic and personal journey as a Black woman in a field dominated by white men. The author is candid about her hesitation to dive completely into such a field in the early 2000s, when representation was scarce. Thankfully, encouraging mentors throughout her impressive academic career (she has degrees from Emory, Yale, and Columbia) changed this uncertainty and supported the ambitions that would lead to her first up-close experiences with some of the world’s most dangerous carnivores. During her incredible ventures into the wilderness, Wynn-Grant always pays close attention to the impact of human-animal conflict, which has been a focus of her research throughout her career. While this intersection frequently results in the death or displacement of animals, the author also describes the ways in which human involvement is positive. “Humans are a part of the en­vironment. Human life, human dignity, and human livelihoods play a necessary, inseparable role in the health and functioning of ecosystems,” she writes. “While this may seem obvious, it’s a difficult con­cept to keep at the top of your mind when your whole career is oriented toward saving nonhuman animals.” While breathtaking moments with dangerous wildlife abound, Wynn-Grant also examines fraught relationships, mental hardships, and even instances of imposter syndrome that no amount of qualifications can quell. Throughout, we see a dedicated scientist fighting for the life she wants—and achieving it.

Pub Date: April 2, 2024

ISBN: 9781638930402

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Get Lifted Books/Zando

Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SURVIVORS & ADVENTURERS | ETHNICITY & RACE | WOMEN & FEMINISM | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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New York Times Bestseller

by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.

Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2

Page Count: 192

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton photographed by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton ; photographed by Brandon Stanton

LOVE, PAMELA

by Pamela Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.

According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that ." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy , which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023

ISBN: 9780063226562

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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Book Review of Wild by Cheryl Strayed

• Covered Subject 4.0
• Cover Art 4.0
• Organization 4.0
• Writing 4.0

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Quick Review

• The story follows our main character, Cheryl Strayed, throughout as expected with a memoir.
• Set on the Pacific Cost Trail, which is a scenic hiking trail spanning from the bottom of California to the top of Washington in the United States.
• I did not have too many strong emotional reactions to this story throughout, which I was surprised by as I really enjoyed and connected to the movie. I think if I had read the book before watching the movie I would feel more strongly.
• I feel that the story has a slow pace, especially the third part, and I was waiting for the next non-climatic event after event to happen. However I still found the writing to be really good, it’s just that I wasn’t as interested or engaged as I had expected to be.
• Only Cheryl, the main character, is a whole and fully developed character. All other’s lack a lot of dimension, but that is because it is not their story or the kind of story to develop other characters. For example, her ex-husband Paul is not described in any detail and remains a two-dimensional character on the page.

If I had to describe this book in two words: adventurous and interesting.

**SERIOUS SPOILERS** Click black text to reveal spoilers.

**Trigger and Content Warnings**

This book discusses sensitive subjects that some readers may find triggering. Please take care of yourself. Triggers and content warnings in this story include but are not limited to:

• Animals (snakes, bear, bull, bugs, etc.)
• Animal death
• Blood and Gore (human and animal)
• Death (parent, friend and animal)
• Drug use and abuse (alcohol, heroin , marijuana, root drug)
• Homelessness
• Occult (brief mentions of Bigfoot)
• Pregnancy (abortion)
• Relationship Issues
• Toxic Relationships

Yeahhh…there’s a lot in this book. Read more about Trigger and Content Warnings .

In Depth Review

Fox metaphor, hardships and kindness.

During her hike Cheryl faces so many setbacks it’s a wonder that she ever really get’s to the end:

• Having to take rides that take her miles back that she’d already hiked, bypasses, and paths gone wrong.
• Oscillating weather including record snowfalls and temperatures in the 100s.
• So many rattlesnakes, bears, a bull, ants, mountain lion tracks and even a frog attack.
• People who threaten to call the police on her.
• Battered feet and the loss of most of her toe nails (mostly due to poorly fitting boots but at one point she also pulls them off herself!).
• Looses her poorly fitting boots.
• Thinking about her family including her ex-husband Paul, her brother, her step-father Eddie, her mother and her mother’s horse, Lady.
• Processing how dysfunctionally her family handled her mother’s death and the heart breaking circumstances surrounding it.
• Dealing with the guilt of cheating on her husband (which is actually very common thing to happen during grief).
• Running out of water, a clogged filter, and having her water freeze.
• Sketchy men.
• An active mine.
• Misplaced money.
• Rain soaked supplies.
• Suffering, just a lot of suffering.

Besides a few differences like this and all the details the movie couldn’t possibly include, I found the movie very true to the book overall.

Ending the Journey

Gilmore girls and wild tie-in.

I was a SUPER FREAK for Gilmore Girls back when it was on, and watched it RELIGIOUSLY. I could NOT be interrupted. I think a lot of book lovers really loved this show, and I was no exception. I actually rewatched the series in its entirety in anticipation for the reboot, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life .

In the Fall episode Lorelai goes “wild” and follows in the footsteps of Cheryl Strayed and sets off to go camping, full monster pack in tow. However in true Lorelai fashion, she doesn’t actually get any hiking done but does have her “ah-ha” moment. The way this episode portrays the thru-hiker is fricken’ hilarious, but obviously just a character. I really enjoyed this mini-series reboot, it had all the things to love about the Gilmore Girls – the witty banter, the characters, continued plot lines, and new twists. The only significant person missing of course was Edward Hermann, RIP.

SUPER NOTE: STOP EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW!! I just learned in researching for this article that they thought about A FREAKIN’ SEASON 2 of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Are you freakin’ kidding me?! All of the excite if that actually happens. Rory pregnant? Ugh.

Reoccurring Themes

In this book I actually noticed a few reoccurring themes (yay me!) that I felt were significant to the plot and to Cheryl’s character development:

• Cheryl wants to deal with her problems and “find herself” while also simultaneously trying to slip away from life or escape it, at least temporarily.
• Another reoccurring theme I noticed is that the people Cheryl meets often comment on how remarkable it is that she’s hiking the PCT alone. However people and woman do it alone every year. In fact, according to my research one third to half of all hikers on the PCT are female through the years. Maybe it was less common in 1995 (statistics didn’t go that far back for gender)?
• Cheryl realized that on her travels she encountered almost exclusively kind and giving people (besides those two men) and that the world was filled with good people. As she comes to this realization, as if on cue a man offers her and her friends a cabin for the night to stay and dry out in. I don’t think that everyone has this kind of experience.
• Cheryl explores her relationship with men throughout this story and near the end finds that she can be complete within herself.
• Throughout the books Cheryl also explores her relationship with her mother and her breakup with her husband Paul, experiencing a wide range of feelings, emotions and thoughts. I feel that these parts of the book are the most beautifully written, heart-felt and wrenching, especially about her mother. But it’s not until the end of the story that she really dives in deep and fully realizes all that has passed and all that it meant to her.

eBook Review

The beginning of the book has a map of the Pacific Coast Trail, dedication, an author’s note, and a prologue. The book is sectioned into five parts and nineteen chapters. There are no illustrations besides the map.

In the eBook version that I have and read along side the audiobook there are some extra parts at the end (I’m not sure if these are in the physical copy of the book or not). The first section is “Books Burned on the PCT” followed by the section “Wild By Cheryl Strayed Reading Group Guide”. These are notes and questions that can be used for discussion in book clubs. I think this part is very interesting and illuminating – for example Cheryl seems to candidly address if her lack of shame is a flaw or a strength by posing it as a question. The back of the book also has your standard acknowledgements, suggested reading, about the author, and more by this author sections.

Audiobook Review

• The audiobook version of Wild is narrated by Bernadette Dunne, who from my research appears to mainly be an audiobook narrator.
• I found Bernadette’s narration soothing and relaxing. She reads with an American accent.
• There is no true voicing of characters but it’s easy to tell when someone else is talking.
• I found the pace of the reading a bit slow.
• Overall I enjoyed the narration and it still sounded good at higher speeds.
• 13:02:36 in length.

NOTE: I borrowed the audiobook edition from my local library and own an eBook copy.

Favorite Quotes

“Every now and then I could see myself—truly see myself—and a sentence would come to me, thundering like a god into my head, and as I saw myself then in front of that tarnished mirror what came was the woman with the hole in her heart. That was me. That was why I’d longed for a companion the night before. That was why I was here, naked in a motel, with this preposterous idea of hiking alone for three months on the PCT.” Cheryl Strayed

Musical Suggestions

I enjoyed this book while listening to the playlist “ Travel Instrumentals – Uplifting ” on Spotify by Joshua Naranjo.

Learn More About Wild

• Watch the Wild book trailer .
• Watch the official Wild movie trailer .
• Watch a Wild movie interview with Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern and Cheryl Strayed.
• Watch “ Interview Cheryl Strayed Reese Witherspoon WILD “.
• Visit the author Cheryl Strayed website and read more about the book, including praise, a reading guide, and a long book excerpt.
• Follow the author Cheryl Strayed on Goodreads .
• Visit the narrator Bernadette Dunne’s website .
• Read “ Lorelai Goes “Wild”: Book or Movie ” on Gilmore News.
• Read “ Why “Wild” Played Such A Big Role In “Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life” ” on BuzzFeed.
• Find my short review on Goodreads .

This page may contain affiliate links and if you make a purchase I will earn a small commission fee. I only endorse books, products, services, or content that I have used myself and wouldn’t hesitate to purchase again or recommend to a friend. If you purchase anything that I’ve used here, I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do! Read the full disclosure .

simplyarden

Hi! My name is Arden, and I like to keep things simple but lux.

Join my reading adventures on Goodreads or follow me on Spotify or Instagram .

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Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant

Get Lifted Books

The moment we read Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant’s book, we knew her story was singular, and that she would serve as a wonderful, inspirational model of Black Excellence for so many. Wild Life is written with passion, honesty, and hope. A contribution like this is long overdue.”

- John Legend, Mike Jackson, and Ty Stiklorius, Get Lifted Books

In this vulnerable and urgent memoir, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant explores the ever-shifting relationship between humans, animals, and the earth through her personal journey to becoming a wildlife ecologist.

9781638930402

April 2, 2024

About the Book

Growing up in the diverse and bustling California Bay Area, renowned wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant always felt worlds away from the white male adventurers she watched explore the wilderness on TV. She dreamed of a future where she could spend sleepless nights under the crowded canopies of the Amazon and the starry skies of the savanna. But as Rae set off on her own expeditions in the wild, she saw nature’s delicate balance in a new light.

Wild Life  follows Rae on her adventures and explorations in some of the world’s most remote locales. Hers is a story about a nearly twenty-year career in the wild—carving a niche as one of very few Black female scientists—and the challenges she had to overcome, expectations she had to leave behind, and the many lessons she learned along the way. An incredible journey spanning the Great Plains of North America to the rainforests of Madagascar,  Wild Life  sheds light on our pivotal relationship and responsibility to the natural world and the relatives—both human and otherwise—that we share it with.

“As she shares her adventures, Wynn-Grant encourages readers to learn about and honor Earth’s ecosystems and reveals what it truly means to follow your calling wherever the work may take you. She addresses insecurity and shame as well as self-discovery, perseverance, and finding the courage to face your fears. This is a must-read for women of color and all who care about the environment and the pursuit of science.”

“A wildlife ecologist takes us on a journey of ambition, discovery, and inner acceptance. . .This isn’t simply a nature book or memoir, but a memorable marriage of the two that will leave readers inspired.”

“[A] poignant debut… Wynn-Grant’s passion and tenacity are on full display, elevating the narrative from travelogue to stirring underdog story. It’s an adventure worth taking.”

“As sensitive and touching as it is urgent,…[ Wild Life is] a poignant exploration of the natural world.”

“The moment we read this book, we knew Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant’s story was singular, and that she would serve as a wonderful, inspirational model of Black Excellence for so many.  Wild Life  is written with passion, honesty, and hope. A contribution like this is long overdue.”

“Wildlife ecologist Wynn-Grant recalls nearly two decades of adventures across the globe, always sharing the obstacles she encountered and how she was able to overcome them. As a Black female scientist, Wynn-Grant serves as an inspiration for future generations.”

“ Wild Life  is the bushwacking, honest, and inspiring memoir I wish I’d had as a budding scientist. Dr. Wynn-Grant’s richly-told, revelatory journey will surely have remarkable ripples for generations—and have you on the edge of your seat.”

“This is a necessary read. Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant is transforming the environmental media landscape to center equity and inclusion while empowering the next generation of Black women to turn to STEM”

“On paper and in real life Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant lifts as she climbs, opening the door for the next generation of environmental leaders of color.  Wild   Life  is a stunning testimony of a woman who, against all odds, persevered and remained grounded in her commitment to chasing her dreams and fearlessly advocating for both people and the planet. It’s a must-read for the next generation of leaders seeking a reminder that against all odds, we can and will overcome.”

Rae Wynn-Grant

Rae Wynn-Grant  is a wildlife ecologist with an expertise in uncovering how human activity influences carnivore behavior and ecology. She received her BS in environmental studies from Emory University, her MS in environmental studies from Yale University, and her PhD in ecology and evolution from Columbia University. She is a Research Fellow with the National Geographic Society, with whom she has appeared on a variety of televised nature programs and for whom she’s currently on a 20-city speaking tour as part of Nat Geo Live. She serves on The North Face’s Explore Fund Council, co-hosts  Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild  on NBC, hosts the podcast  Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant , produced by PBS, and has been featured in  Vogue ,  Forbes , the  New York Times , and the  Los Angeles Times , among many others. She lives in California.

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For Caleb Carr, Salvation Arrived on Little Cat’s Feet

As he struggled with writing and illness, the “Alienist” author found comfort in the feline companions he recalls in a new memoir, “My Beloved Monster.”

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By Alexandra Jacobs

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MY BELOVED MONSTER: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me, by Caleb Carr

J. Alfred Prufrock measured his life out in coffee spoons . Caleb Carr has done so in cats.

Carr is best known for his 1994 best-selling novel “ The Alienist ,” about the search for a serial killer of boy prostitutes, and his work as a military historian. You have to prod the old brain folds a little more to remember that he is the middle son of Lucien Carr , the Beat Generation figure convicted of manslaughter as a 19-year-old Columbia student after stabbing his infatuated former Boy Scout leader and rolling the body into the Hudson.

This crime is only fleetingly alluded to in “My Beloved Monster,” which tracks Carr’s intimate relationship with a blond Siberian feline he names Masha — but his father haunts the book, as fathers will, more sinisterly than most.

After a short prison term, Lucien went on to become a respectable longtime editor for United Press International. He was a drunk — no surprise there, with famous dissolute-author pals like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg hanging around the house. But that he regularly beat Caleb and threw him down flights of stairs, causing not just psychological but physical injuries that persist into adult life, adds further dark shadings to this particular chapter of literary history.

In a boyhood marred by abuse, neglect and the upheaval of his parents’ divorce, cats were there to comfort and commune with Caleb. Indeed, he long believed he was one in a previous life, “ imperfectly or incompletely reincarnated ” as human, he writes.

Before you summon Shirley MacLaine to convene 2024’s weirdest author panel, consider the new ground “My Beloved Monster” breaks just by existing. Even leaving aside the countless novels about them, dogs have long been thought valid subjects for book-length treatment, from Virginia Woolf’s “ Flush ,” about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel, to John Grogan’s “ Marley and Me .” Meow-moirs are thinner on the ground.

It’s taken a younger generation of feminists, and probably the boredom and anxiety of quarantine, to destigmatize (and in some cases monetize ) being owned by a cat. Male cat fanciers, however, have long been stereotyped as epicene or eccentric, though their number has included such national pillars of machismo as Ernest Hemingway and Marlon Brando . When one male lawyer accidentally showed up to a civil forfeiture hearing behind a kitten filter on Zoom in 2021, America went wild with the incongruity.

Carr, though he’s a big one for research, doesn’t waste much time, as I just have, throat-clearing about cats’ perch in the culture. He’s suffered from one painful illness after another — neuropathy, pancreatitis, peritonitis, Covid or something Covid-like, cancer; and endured multiple treatments and surgeries, some “botched” — and his writing has the forthrightness and gravity of someone who wants to maximize his remaining time on Earth.

He capitalizes not only Earth, but the Sun, the Moon and the roles played by various important anonymous humans in his life, which gives his story a sometimes ponderous mythic tone: there’s the Mentor, the Lady Vet (a homage to Preston Sturges’ “The Lady Eve”; Carr is a classic movie buff), the Spinal Guru and so forth.

Names are reserved for a succession of cats, who have seemingly been as important to Carr as lovers or human friends, if not more so. (At least one ex felt shortchanged by comparison.) Masha is his spirit animal, a feminine counterpart better than any you could find in the old New York Review of Books personals . She eats, he notes admiringly, “like a barbarian queen”; she enjoys the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff and Wagner (“nothing — and I’ll include catnip in this statement,” he writes, “made her as visibly overjoyed as the Prelude from ‘Das Rheingold’”); she has a really great set of whiskers.

Before Masha there was Suki, blond as well, but a bewitching emerald-eyed shorthair who chomped delicately around rodents’ organs and disappeared one night. Suki was preceded by Echo, a part-Abyssinian with an adorable-sounding penchant for sticking his head in Carr’s shirtfront pocket. Echo was preceded by Chimene, a tabby-splotched white tomcat the adolescent Caleb nurses miraculously through distemper. Chimene was preceded by Ching-ling, whose third litter of kittens suffer a deeply upsetting fate. And before Ching-ling there was Zorro, a white-socked “superlative mouser” who once stole an entire roast chicken from the top of the Carr family’s refrigerator.

To put it mildly, “My Beloved Monster” is no Fancy Feast commercial. All of the cats in it, city and country — Carr has lived in both, though the action is centered at his house on a foothill of Misery Mountain in Rensselaer County, N.Y— are semi-feral creatures themselves at constant risk of gruesome predation. Masha, rescued from a shelter, had also been likely abused, at the very least abandoned in a locked apartment, and Carr is immediately, keenly attuned to her need for wandering free.

This, of course, will put her at risk. The tension between keeping her safe and allowing her to roam, out there with bears, coyotes and fearsome-sounding creatures called fisher weasels, is the central vein of “My Beloved Monster,” and the foreboding is as thick as her triple-layered fur coat. More so when you learn Carr keeps a hunting rifle by one of his easy chairs.

But the book is also about Carr’s devotion to a line of work he likens to “professional gambling.” Despite his best sellers, Hollywood commissions and conscious decision not to have children to stop the “cycle of abuse,” Carr has faced money troubles. The I.R.S. comes to tape a placard to his door and he’s forced to sell vintage guitars to afford Masha’s medications, for she has begun in eerie parallel to develop ailments of her own.

“My Beloved Monster’ is a loving and lovely, lay-it-all-on-the-line explication of one man’s fierce attachment. If you love cats and feel slightly sheepish about it, it’s a sturdy defense weapon. If you hate them, well, there’s no hope for you.

MY BELOVED MONSTER : Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me | By Caleb Carr | Little, Brown | 352 pp. | $32

Alexandra Jacobs is a Times book critic and occasional features writer. She joined The Times in 2010. More about Alexandra Jacobs

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Finding Wild

Buy from other retailers, what's .css-1msjh1x{font-style:italic;} finding wild about.

A lovely, lyrical picture book with gorgeous illustrations that explores the ways the wild makes itself known to us and how much closer it is than we think. There are so many places that wild can exist, if only you know where to look! Can you find it? Two kids set off on an adventure away from their urban home and discover all the beauty of the natural world. From the bark on the trees to the sudden storm that moves across the sky to fire and flowers, and snowflakes and fresh fruit. As the children make their way through the woods and back to the paved and noisy streets, they discover that wild exists not just off in some distant place, but right in their own backyard. *”Sometimes the most striking picture books are the ones that make readers see something in a new way, or that creatively express a concept regularly pondered but rarely put into words.”–Shelf Awareness, starred review “Lloyd’s sparkling debut celebrates nature through a whimsical meditation on the idea of wildness. Halpin’s lush and delicately detailed mixed-media pictures…dominated by muted greens and blues pull readers into the diverse landscapes the children traverse. A spirit of adventure and exploration runs throughout the book.” –Publishers Weekly

What Kind of Book is Finding Wild

Primarily about, book lists that include finding wild.

The Creatives Behind the Book

Megan Wagner Lloyd’s debut picture book, Finding Wild, was called “sparkling” by Publishers Weekly, and her latest, Fort-Building Time, was called “playful reading fun” by Kirkus Reviews. Megan lives with her family in the Washington, DC, area. Visit her online at MeganWagnerLloyd.com.

Abigail Halpin is the illustrator of many books for young readers, including Finding Wild and Mama’s Belly. She lives in Maine.

What Has Megan Wagner Lloyd Said About This Book

Nothing yet! Let Megan Wagner Lloyd know that you want to hear from them about their book.

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Finding Wild Hardcover – Picture Book, May 10, 2016

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 32 pages
• Language English
• Grade level Preschool - 2
• Lexile measure AD580L
• Dimensions 10.31 x 0.32 x 8.31 inches
• Publisher Knopf Books for Young Readers
• Publication date May 10, 2016
• ISBN-10 1101932813
• ISBN-13 978-1101932810
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

From school library journal, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf Books for Young Readers; Illustrated edition (May 10, 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 32 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1101932813
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1101932810
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 3 - 7 years, from customers
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ AD580L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ Preschool - 2
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.5 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 10.31 x 0.32 x 8.31 inches
• #192 in Children's Recycling & Green Living Books
• #412 in Children's Environment Books (Books)
• #4,092 in Children's Activity Books (Books)

About the authors

Megan wagner lloyd.

Megan Wagner Lloyd is the author of the kids' graphic novels ALLERGIC and SQUISHED, co-created with illustrator Michelle Mee Nutter. She's also the author of SUPER PANCAKE, co-created with illustrator Abhi Alwar, along with the novel HAVEN: A SMALL CAT'S BIG ADVENTURE, and several picture books. She lives with her family in the Washington DC area.

Sign up for her newsletter: meganwagnerlloyd.com

Find her on Instagram: @meganwagnerlloyd

Abigail Halpin

Abigail Halpin is an illustrator who lives, draws and dreams on the Maine coast. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Abigail is a lifelong New Englander and is endlessly influenced by the region's flora, fauna and rocky shoreline. Abigail's illustrations have appeared in middle grade novels and picture books, including FINDING WILD, BELLA'S RULES and on THE CUPCAKE DIARIES series covers.

Abigail also creates textile illustrations, blending drawing and embroidery, portraiture and needlework. She shares her creative adventures regularly on her blog and on social media - visit www.theodesign.com to learn more.

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