Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

I enjoyed this memoir of a young woman dealing with grief over her mother's death and the disintegration of her family, who decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail through California to Oregon. The book is presented as a tale of how Cheryl Strayed worked out her self destructive behavior on the trail (“From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail”), but the story doesn't really record the process of becoming “found” so much as present it as a result of doing the hike. The story of the hike is told along with the story of the mother's death, the falling away of her stepfather and siblings, and her drug use and infidelities to her husband. It's clear that she saw the hike as a kind of salvation even before she started it. But once the story reaches the actual hike, it doesn't dwell on salvation or redemption, but on the details of her life on the trail— which are pretty interesting. You as a reader are free to come to your own conclusions about why or whether the hike was redemptive, but in the meantime you get to enjoy a pretty good adventure story.