Girl in the Woods

A Memoir

De: Aspen Matis

Narrado por: Stephanie Tucker

Girl in the Woods is Aspen Matis's exhilarating true-life adventure of hiking from Mexico to Canada—a coming of age story, a survival story, and a triumphant story of overcoming emotional devastation. On her second night of college, Aspen was raped by a fellow student. Overprotected by her parents who discouraged her from telling of the attack, Aspen was confused and ashamed. Dealing with a problem that has sadly become all too common on college campuses around the country, she stumbled through her first semester—a challenging time made even harder by the coldness of her college's ""conflict mediation"" process. Her desperation growing, she made a bold decision: She would seek healing in the freedom of the wild, on the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail leading from Mexico to Canada.

In this inspiring memoir, Aspen chronicles her journey, a five-month trek that was ambitious, dangerous, and transformative. A nineteen-year-old girl alone and lost, she conquered desolate mountain passes and met rattlesnakes, bears, and fellow desert pilgrims. Exhausted after each thirty-mile day, at times on the verge of starvation, Aspen was forced to confront her numbness, coming to terms with the sexual assault and her parents' disappointing reaction. On the trail and on her own, she found that survival is predicated on persistent self-reliance. She found her strength. After a thousand miles of solitude, she found a man who helped her learn to love and trust again—and heal.

Told with elegance and suspense, Girl in the Woods is a beautifully rendered story of eroding emotional and physical boundaries to reveal the truths that lie beyond the edges of the map.

Fantastic!

Loved it! I couldn't wait to listen tonthe next chapter. The story is fascinating and the writing is beautiful.

Amazing!

It's such a wonderful story and is beautifully written and narrated! I hope to see more from Aspen Matis!

Not as expected

I didn’t mind this book, I understand the perspective but I think bc I’m not the age she was when the book was written I find it difficult to relate. Overall a good book, and she learned incredible lessons about herself during her walk.

It was ok

Had a hard time connecting with the author. Some of the things she does just seem like she is is very young and privileged. Maybe I just had a rough child hood.

If you want a book on hiking, skip it.

This girl goes on a 2,600 mile long hike and barely mentions the scenery or anything else about the trail or the towns she visits. If you want to hear the long-winded and repetitive emotional journey of a spoiled and overly producted girl, this is for you. In the beginning of the book she gets raped. Which is an awful thing to happen to her. She mentions it every 3-7 minutes for the next 12 hours. You'll get hours of her emotional need to be loved by her parents and men in general and minutes of story about the trail. She walks 600-1,000 miles of the trail and spends 1-2 paragraphs talking about the trail and scenery. It's an autobiographical story and she still wrote herself as a hard to like character.