I read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer a couple of weeks ago. The book chronicles his attempt to climb Mt. Everest in 1995, which at that point in time was the deadliest year on Mt. Everest on record. I am not an outdoorsy, adventurous person myself, but I am intrigued by people who are and after reading that book I was in the mood for more in the same vein.

I'd seen the movie based on this book a few years ago, but I don't remember much about it. But I figured that the source material would make for an interesting read.

I was wrong.

At first, I thought it was just the writing that was turning me off. I usually give memoirs a little leeway when I critique the writing, as they are often written by people who don't consider themselves writers in their daily lives. But Cheryl Strayed supposedly has an MFA in writing...she should be better at it than she is. I don't have the time or inclination to quote all of the crappy writing, but here are a few gems:

"I cried and cried and cried."

"I walked and walked and walked."

"We kissed and kissed and kissed."

"It rained and rained and rained."

She also uses the word 'profound' or one of the iterations of the word 19 times. Nineteen freaking times. That's a lot of profundity.
There are sections that are drowning in purple prose that makes no freaking sense, and then there are other sections that are utterly lacking in any real description.

Also, the dialogue in this book is cringy. People just don't talk the way these people talk. I started to notice it more in the second half, when I switched to the audiobook while I was doing housework. Most of the characters she meets are very stereotypical in one way or another, and their dialogue reflects whatever stereotype she's trying to portray. There is a biker character whose every third word is some version of "motherf***er". There is the token Latino who throws in random Spanish words here and there. He also randomly talks about spirit walks and I'm wondering if Cheryl Strayed thinks Latinos and Native Americans are the same thing. There are various hippie-types who also talk about spirituality while they smoke weed or ingest chewable opium or whatever it is they do. It all feels very caricaturist.

However, the less-than-mediocre writing is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the issues I had with this book.

As I continued reading, there were details that just seemed a little off to me. Timelines didn't match. There was a lack of consistency in the characters and their situation. I don't remember exactly when I began to doubt the veracity of the story, but by the time Cheryl was talking about bumming around England with her now ex-husband, I was fully skeptical.

Okay, so she says early in the book that her mother died when she was 22. She says that, at that time, she was only one 5-page essay away from graduating with her bachelor's (which sounds like bullshit to me). So that would make sense for someone who had a normal class load for four years. Start college around 18, finish around 22. So far, so good, right?
Except later in the book she talks about all of the traveling she did with her husband who she married at just 19 years old. She says that after they married, they went off to Ireland where they lived for several months, and then to England where they were for several months after that. She doesn't say exactly when they returned to the United States, but does say that it wasn't long after they returned that her mother got sick and died, which happened very suddenly. So let's say that she was in Europe for a year between twenty and twenty-one, and that she got back a year before her mother's death. I don't see how she would've been able to do all of that traveling and still on the verge of completing her degree. She doesn't mention taking any distance courses and the internet wasn't exactly mainstream in the early nineties, especially if you were so poor that you walked the London streets searching for coins, as she claims she and her husband did.

Other WTF moments for me include:

1. Bow hunters being on a hunting trip with no water. Any moderately experienced hunter (which bow hunters would be) would have water with them. And three miles back to their car wouldn't be a big deal. And they wouldn't be on a hiking trail outside of hunting season (which August would be) risking being caught hunting illegally.

2. The Swiss woman who supposedly rubbed Cheryl's feet at one of the stops. We've just had over a hundred pages of Cheryl lamenting the state of her feet. We're supposed to believe they are a blistered, bloody, bloated mess. They're dirty and sweaty and missing half the toenails. But this random good Samaritan doesn't mind that at all. Nope. I don't believe that garbage for one second.

3. The park ranger who supposedly comes on to her. He's drunk or medicated and still working, armed, as a ranger. He makes some thinly-veiled overtures to her and ends up inviting her back to his place. I just didn't believe it.

4. The Horse Scene. I won't get into it because just thinking about it makes my stomach turn, but WTAF. But do I actually believe that someone who is so poor that they didn't have indoor plumbing but they could afford to purchase and stable a thoroughbred? Eh, not really. Even if the seller gave her a good deal and the stabler let her work for the horse's upkeep, it's far-fetched. I grew up poor AF and there's no way we would've had an extra $300 per month to pay for a horse. And just because someone stabled it doesn't mean that's the only expense...you still have to...you know...FEED THEM. But yeah, that horse scene?? That was f***ing awful.

Because I don't have the time or energy to fully dissect this garbage, I would point you to the blog linked below. This is written by a woman who is herself an avid distance hiker. She's actually walked from coast to coast. She's also an Army vet. She goes through the book chapter by chapter outlining all of the instances of embellishment and flat-out bull****. Many of the commenters on the blog are also experienced hikers who are familiar with the PCT and hiker culture in general. I don't necessarily agree with EVERYTHING on here, but I do think it's worth a read if, like me, you finished this book with doubt of its veracity.

https://cherylstrayedisaliar.blogspot.com/

So one of my biggest annoyances throughout this book was how Cheryl portrayed herself. Every man she came across made her hot and bothered. Even if she didn't think they were attractive, she wanted them to think SHE was attractive and even when they would inadvertently touch her, she would have some fleeting thought about having sex with them. Now, I'm all for sex positive female characters. If you are a consenting adult, go for it. But seriously, EVERY MAN. And if you go by this book, we're supposed to believe that every man she came into contact with was just as lusty as she was, even though she was sweaty and dirty and bruised and blistery...ooh, yeah...sexy.

Also, every time she meets someone, they spend pages and pages stroking her ego. She's so wonderful, she's so amazing, and OMG! HER PACK IS SO BIG AND HEAVY!! Seriously, there is a part where she meets two Army soldiers who tell her that she is way stronger than they are and that her pack is definitely way heavier than theirs. I rolled my eyes so hard here. At one point she meets a group of scouts who ooh and ahh all over her while asking her about hiking.

I think the thing that bothered me the most is the thought that other people -- men and women both -- would read this book, accept it as true, and then try to do what she did. If this book is to be believed, she set out with little to no experience and hiked 1,100 miles and came out alive and well. She has advocated for people to just go out and learn on the way. That is a terrible piece of advice. People die every year on these types of hikes, and many of them are experienced hikers. To tell them to essentially 'wing it' is going to get people hurt and possibly dead. I can't think of a more irresponsible thing to do.