As a lover of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, is there room in my life for another hiking-a-very-long-trail book? Sure, it’s a different trail (Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, Sally hiked the Appalachian Trail), but it’s a very similar concept.
Read on to find out if there’s room in my life for multiple trail memoirs!
Going to Maine Summary
From comedian Sally Chaffin Brooks comes a memoir about the thing she can’t seem to shut up about— her life changing thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.
25-year-old Sally has no reason to upend her comfortable, conventional life to spend 5 months hiking the Appalachian Trail; no reason except that her charismatic best friend, Erin, asked her to come along. A woefully out-of-shape Sally quickly realizes she may not actually be prepared for the realities of thru-hiking— brutal weather, wrong turns, and painful blisters have her wanting to quit almost as soon as she starts. But out of loyalty to Erin, or maybe the sinking realization that her life needed upending, Sally sticks it out. As she and Erin trek from Georgia to Maine, they collect a ragtag band of hikers and together stumble from one hilarious (and sometimes scary) predicament to another. By the time she reaches Maine— accompanied by Erin, their crew, and a guy she’ s maybe (definitely) falling in love with— readers will cheer for the stronger, more self-assured Sally that has emerged and wish they could start the laugh-out-loud, life-affirming adventure all over again.
My Review
I immediately gravitated to this book because I’ve loved both Wild by Cheryl Strayed and A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. I was curious about whether Going to Maine would fit in with those, or if it would be trying too hard to be one or the other.
Well, you’ll be happy to know it stands proudly and wholly on its own. Brooks isn’t trying too hard to be as funny and deadpan as Bryson, nor as insightful and literary as Strayed. Instead, she carves out her very own space for a memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail that’s just perfectly her.
She sets off with her best friend Erin on the adventure of a lifetime in the spring, and I felt like I was right there with her. Her writing is detailed enough but not overdoing it, and it honestly felt like chatting with a friend. There were a couple spots where it almost felt a little bit rushed, like “oh no I have to get this story in and the book is getting a bit long,” but that was barely an issue at all; I still loved it!
I couldn’t believe her friend Erin was out there as a Type I diabetic. That takes some serious guts and skills to manage your sugar with the weird diet and tons of exercise! Kudos to her, and to Sally for being there for her and keeping watch over her best friend’s health.
I loved all the characters Brooks introduces in the book. They were great friends, and they all seemed like people I’d love to be friends with. She shares stories about all the shenanigans they got into on the trail, which made the whole book fun to read. I loved their trail names, how they split up and somehow find each other again, the drama of Sally’s relationship, the potty humor, the idolization of hot and fatty foods, the interesting locals she meets along the way…the whole book was just so fun to read.
Here’s my favorite line:
I could pore over elevation maps and read guide books to get a sense of the terrain, but uncontrollable factors like the weather, the state of my body, the weight of my pack, my ever-changing mood, or the company I kept, could transform a seemingly easy day into an epic one, and an insurmountable distance into a walk in the woods.
Going to Maine, page 85
Overall it was a book I loved, and it was like going on an escape to the woods with a good (and funny) friend. I’m giving it a very solid 4.5 stars, but I rounded up to 5 for Goodreads because this author deserves the credit 🙂
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Related: 5 Books for Quitting Your Job to Move to the Woods
