Girl in the Woods: A Memoir

By Aspen Matis

Book Overview

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.

--Leigh Newman, author of Still Points North

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062291068
• ISBN13: 9780062291066
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Good read if you skip some of her inner therapy sessions

She is a good writer. But, she was dealing with a lot on this trail, a rape in college, and a lot of inner turmoil related to her childhood upbringing. Hiking and writing this book was therapy for her, torture in sections to read over and over for me. Also, its torture to read about people who go out so unprepared for a hike like this. Lucky she survived, many don't.