A junkie in the woods, dry heaving as she walks along makes for repetitive reading. The Cancer Devil who stalked Strayed is the same Demon that hunts those in an urban environment, both are the same, nothing original about them. Cancer kills, car accidents too and the ever methodical serial killer. Cause and effect leads to the casket. No death is special or exclusive.

Strayed's Walden fueled journey fails as Walden's did: both were escaping, not embracing the truth of nature, it is merely a colorful backdrop serving a pseudo-epic purpose. And the boulders, creeks, the wide sky above have erased every trace of her passage, the hiker that never was. She is that little before the trees that swayed their disapproval, she was a trespasser.

Chris Roberts

Memoirs fail because the genre is a self-important ego trip. Nobody that lived is nearly enough intriguing to write out their life for public consumption. When you think memoir, think better and jot your musings in a diary. Lock it in a desk drawer and throw away the key and to be safe, throw the entire desk out the window.