A Girl in the Woods by Aspen Matis

Aspen Matis was incredibly excited to go to college out of state and begin her life as an independent adult. But only a day into her life as a student, she was raped. Over the following school year, her once promising time at college turned into a nightmare as her rapist was allowed to continue on at her school and even moved into her dorm. Not surprisingly, Aspen dropped out, and to try and heal her wounds, she decided to hike the entirety of the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650 mile journey from the Mexican border in the south all the way to the Canadian border in the north. The rest of her memoir details her choices, trials, triumphs and mistakes as she makes her way northward, going from desert to snow-capped mountains.

Readers may be tempted to compare Matis' memoir with that of the well-known memoir, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and it is similar in the fact that both women suffered horrible tragedies and hiked the PCT in the aftermath. This is where the similarity ends as their writing styles differ dramatically as do their experiences on the trail. Matis' writing highlights the immediacy of her emotions when hiking, while also focusing at length on the dependent and sheltered way in which she was raised and how, by hiking the trail, she attempts to listen to her instincts instead of relying on others to protect and care for her. Both Wild and Girl in the Woods are intense memoirs full of mistakes and burgeoning enlightenment, and both are worthy of a reader's time.