In one of the more rattling moments, after a tension-filled relationship, her boyfriend bails on her in the snowy high Sierra, taking the map they’d shared. As she gains independence and begins to heal, she recognizes her own naivety and selfishness. Through vivid scenes, Matis describes her encounters with the wilderness and fellow hikers. After her assault, she struggles to regain control of the direction of her life, to learn self-care, and come to a new understanding of who she is post-crime. Because of these elements, Girl in the Woods is an elegant revision of a familiar but powerful tale-an overprotected child maturing into a young woman. While she is loved, like most college-aged kids, she still feels awkward and uncomfortable in her abilities. Yet Matis’s picture-perfect environment drafts her into a disempowered adolescent. Matis longed for a closer relationship with her reserved dad, but he was still silently supportive, often calling her “a genius.” She grew up living what many would label the American Dream. She has two athletic adoring older brothers and is close with her mom, who showers her with affection, private painting lessons, ceramics, and weekly strolls to Whole Foods. Matis grew up privileged, without knowing loss, in Newton, Massachusetts-statistically the safest town in America. Her happily married mother and father are solvent lawyers who fish on annual vacations in Colorado. However, by the end of the first page, Matis’s idyllic upbringing by Harvard-educated parents marked a riveting contrast in plots.
Matis’s account of her 2009 journey at 19 is a much rawer perspective, published when Matis was 25.Īs a fan of Strayed’s potent honesty regarding her challenges-mourning the death of her mom, quitting heroin, ending self-destructive sex-I was initially drawn to Girl in the Woods because of the apparent similarity to Wild. In 1995, Strayed hiked as a 26-year-old divorcee, but released her best-selling book in 2012 at 44 with well-aged insight. Girl in the Woods is a younger coming of age story. While authors Strayed and Matis may share the trail, the similarities end there. Unable to focus on her studies and disappointed by her family’s unemotional responses, Matis fled to Mexico determined to hike 2,650 miles to Canada in solitude. While he continued his education unscathed, she was relocated to a dank dorm off campus to avoid him. She attempted to seek justice through her school, but her assailant denied his crime and accused her of lying. After being raped her second night of college at age 18, Matis was devastated and confused. But Girl in the Woods, a debut memoir by Aspen Matis depicts overcoming a different trauma on the same route. When I hear Pacific Crest Trail I picture Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, or a sweaty Reese Witherspoon lugging a trash bin sized backpack across the silver screen.
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