Heartbreaking, uplifting, soul-cleansing. The absolute epitome of a memoir. I don't like to say this, because I don't like the hokey phrasing, but this book has changed me. 
 I'd never heard of Dear Sugar, or in fact Cheryl Strayed at all before I picked up this book. I doubt I would have even touched it if I hadn't spent the winter working a seasonal job at a big-chain book store that never ever seemed to have enough copies of this book. We'd be making displays or filling feature bays and on the planogram it would name this book, and whenever I went to find it, it was never fucking there. 
 What gave? I used to feel a great swell of joy when we'd tear open a box and find maybe only three copies, because at least then the front bays wouldn't look so damn empty. 
 Because I was a terrible employee who loved books too much to work in an environment in which I was surrounded by them, I used to hunch in the corner of the biography section and read small snippets of it; I was never caught, but it was Christmastime and my mother was asking without relent, "What do you want for Christmas? TELL ME WHAT TO GET YOU!" 
 I named this book, figuring I should save myself the danger of firing (except, you know, it did thrill me. I used to haunt the travel section when I was supposed to be shelving and secretly read Bill Bryson and Jane Christmas, and the thought of being caught made me feel like an outlaw, a bandit, a pirate. I know. I'm very sad) and just get the damn book. So I asked for it, and I didn't get it. 
 I had maybe twelve days left of employee discount, so bought it with one of my final book hauls. I set it aside when I got home and immediately started reading A House in the Sky, which ended up making me feel physically ill every time I turned a page. It was so disturbing that I had to put it on hold. (I made a promise that I would one day return to AHITS, because it feels silly and precious of me to decide I'm not strong enough simply to read it, when one woman actually went through it.) So onward to Wild. 
 All of you already know I'm a crybaby - in fact, I actually have a shelf for books that made me cry, either with laughter or joy or fury or sadness, because yes, I cry when I experience any one of or any combination of those emotions - but this book really, really took it out of me. I cried twice in the first hundred pages. Why? Because the author's voice is so real, and her writing is so gorgeous, and you feel her grief like a bullet in the chest. It's agonizing. I've seen a few critics cry, "Well, everyone has to lose their parents at some point!" but I call bullshit. No. No. If I were to lose my mother in two years time, I know my life would absolutely shatter. 
 What the fuck is wrong with me? I'm crying now. Jesus wept. Literally, he fucking wept, on my face, and it cursed me with constant uncontrollable emotion. ARGH. STOP IT. 
 People who have what is considered a "normal" closeness with their mothers don't understand. That is, if you were too embarrassed to talk to her about sex and you rushed out of the house at 18 and never saw her except on the holidays, and when you were with your friends as a kid you would roll your eyes and say, "My mom's such a bitch!" There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. It's a parent-child dynamic. 
 And then there are the people who do understand: the ones who've been through something greater with their mothers than a straightforward parent-child dynamic. That parent-child dynamic can blur, and what it blurs into is a deep, soulful, unwavering friendship. Perhaps even beyond that. Perhaps she's your soulmate, because you've been all each other has. There are lines you can cross that take you far beyond, "Well, I know some people who've lost their parents," and into the realm of, "I can't imagine how it must feel to lose someone who saved your life over and over again." 
 Cheryl Strayed knows how that feels. She crumbles apart, and it's up to her - only her, fully alone - to pick up the pieces and put herself back together. What follows her loss is a downward spiral, and what follows her downward spiral is something so unwaveringly brave and daunting. There is no one who can pull her out of her pit but her. So she is the one who struggles to her feet, dusts herself off, and fixes what is broken. 
 This memoir isn't about a woman who hikes herself better. It's a memoir about independence, about love, forgiveness, motherhood and daughterhood, and how, no matter how terrible life gets, there is always a sunrise waiting for you, if you're willing to put on your boots and walk towards it. 
 And that is priceless.