Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
    Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
    Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
    Audiobook14 hours

    Girl in the Woods: A Memoir

    Written by Aspen Matis

    Narrated by Stephanie Tucker

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateSep 8, 2015
    ISBN9780062373571
    Author

    Aspen Matis

    Aspen Matis is a writer living in Greenwich Village, where she's finishing her degree at The New School and working on a novel.

    Related to Girl in the Woods

    Related audiobooks

    Women's Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Choose Your Own Adventure

      May 12, 2020

      Choose Your Own Adventure
      7 min read

    • Article

      Allegiance

      Nov 6, 2023

      Allegiance
      12 min read

    • Article

      His Greatest Legacy

      Mar 24, 2020

      Don’t all girls worship their father? Not until I was older did I realize that all dads are not the same. Mine was especially kind, loving, and supportive; I strive to be as kind and accepting. When I was growing up, my dad had a small business in ou

      5 min read

    • Article

      Journey To Solace

      Aug 12, 2019

      Journey To Solace
      5 min read

    • Article

      Backsiders

      Mar 15, 2022

      We lived in a poor part of town but we had the greatest entertainment. We had the goldfish ponds, we had Motorcycle Hill, we had the dump and Bicycle Jenny. We made rafts for the creek. We lived off the land. Down the street was a family who’d moved

      18 min read

    • Article

      Love’s Pure Light

      Nov 26, 2020

      Love’s Pure Light
      6 min read

    • Article

      Oh! The Boardwalk

      May 30, 2023

      Oh! The Boardwalk
      3 min read

    • Article

      Wild Cards

      Sep 12, 2019

      Wild Cards
      6 min read

    • Article

      To the Mountain

      Oct 29, 2020

      To the Mountain
      4 min read

    • Article

      BITS & PIECES

      Jun 1, 2021

      On Saturday afternoons in the late summer and early fall in 1938, my dad and I would walk three blocks from our house to our local drugstore for our ice-cream treat. On our walks, the trees on each side of the street were covered with late summer/ear

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Beautiful Unforeseen

      Sep 2, 2022

      The Beautiful Unforeseen
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Washington Island Boyhood

      Mar 7, 2023

      A Washington Island Boyhood
      8 min read

    • Article

      Natural Habitat

      Jun 24, 2021

      Natural Habitat
      5 min read

    • Article

      Saddle Up

      Jun 18, 2019

      Saddle Up
      9 min read

    • Article

      Guiding Presence

      May 18, 2020

      Guiding Presence
      7 min read

    • Article

      An Artist’s Journey Home

      Aug 24, 2018

      An Artist’s Journey Home
      5 min read

    • Article

      Penny From Heaven

      Feb 27, 2020

      Penny From Heaven
      5 min read

    • Article

      BITS & PIECES

      Apr 2, 2024

      On cold, gray Saturdays when I was 11 years old, I often would go to the local “picture show” at the local theater. The movies were always cowboy shows, and you could pay for a ticket and stay to watch it over and over. Well, on one particular Saturd

      4 min read

    • Article

      He Who Fishes

      Feb 6, 2023

      He Who Fishes
      15 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Sep 18, 2023

      I grew up in North Myrtle Beach dancing the shag (“Save the Last Shag,” August/ September 2023). I met all the famous bands back then and even partied with the Tams. Wow, those were the days. I still listen to shag music every day on Riptide Radio an

      4 min read

    • Article

      Gene Simmons

      Apr 1, 2022

      EVERYBODY KNOWS GENE Simmons. Or at least, they think they know Gene Simmons. Kiss co-founder, blood-dribbler, tongue-waggler and possessor of one of rock’s biggest egos. But long before he became The Demon, he was Chaim Witz, a kid born in Israel an

      5 min read

    • Article

      Old Growth

      Feb 27, 2024

      Old Growth
      13 min read

    • Article

      Lost In The Woods

      Oct 12, 2023

      Lost In The Woods
      6 min read

    • Article

      Life After Death

      Oct 28, 2022

      Life After Death
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Girl in the Woods

    3.5/5

    50 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      One of the most honest books about a young woman finding her self in the world
      As a great person once said we are a product of all our experiences until we decide not to be

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      This memoir did not manage to engage me emotionally. Too much self grandiose for me.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Too self-conscious. Like an extended selfie shot, where the subject is continually composing herself for the camera. It was hard to maintain empathy with her as this self-consciousness constantly intruded. (This is different from the true self-awareness of an author like Brianna Madia, for example, who has written on a similar theme.) I suspect that if Matis returned to her story and rewrote it some time in the future, it would feel more solid and authentic. I'm not detracting from her experience: rather, commenting on the way she curates it.
    • 4/5
      Aspen Matis's newly released memoir, Girl in the Woods, had me captivated from first page to last.From the book's cover: "On my second night of college, I was raped. Shattered and alone, I fled to the Mexican border and headed north through 2,650 miles of desert and mountains to Canada, walking the height of America in search of home. This is the story of how my recklessness became my salvation."More and more, we hear and read stories of walking as a form of therapy and healing. And I agree - walking clears the brain and allows time to think. The physicality of walking such a distance through so many climates is truly overwhelming and simply remarkable.Matis led a sheltered childhood, allowing her mother to make many of her decisions, including dressing her (up until she was sixteen) Yet, on the other hand, she had attempted other solo extended hikes by lying to her parents about where she was. She purposely found a college a great distance from her childhood home to try and find her own footing. But she is unprepared in many ways, both mentally and emotionally for what life away from home will bring. And as the introduction says - the second day there....I found the first few chapters of Girl in the Woods so compelling and couldn't put the book down. I couldn't wait to see where this walk wold take Aspen - both figuratively and literally. Real life is so unpredictable. Does Matis make choices that everyone would agree with? Absolutely not. Some of those choices put her life in danger - more than once. But, the courage to attempt such a journey has to be applauded. That journey is not just physical - Girl in the Woods is a 'coming of age' story for Matis as she struggles to shed her passivity and find her own footing in the adult world. A large part of that is dealing with the rape and her own sexuality.The descriptions of the trail, the people and the scenery were detailed and vivid and had me imagining what it would be to do such a walk. But this couch potato will continue to live vicariously through others who share their stories. Inevitable comparisons will be made to Cheryl Strayed's Wild. The two women's walks were at different points in their lives and their journeys reflect that. I am fascinated with memoirs - the baring of someone's personal life for public consumption - and criticism. I can't criticize someone's choices and life - I can only say thank you for sharing. Does Matis find her happy ending? Yes - "the trail has shown me how to change" - and no - but that's another story. Isn't that life though? Moving ahead one step at a time, never quite knowing what's around the next bend. Girl in the Woods was a really good read for me.