Liked Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild? You'll love Starting Out In the Afternoon by Jill Frayne
Patricia McCowan is an author of YA fiction and short stories. Her admiration for Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, about the author's life-renewing trek after her mother's death, has led her recommend a Canadian companion — Starting Out In the Afternoon by Jill Frayne.
True independence
"Like Wild, Starting Out In the Afternoon is about a woman taking a three-month-long trip alone through spectacular wilderness. The trip Frayne writes is about a lot more than the landscape and the physical journey. Like Wild, it's about a woman who has reached a point in her life where the only way she feels she can know herself is to leave behind all of the relationships that define her. Both Strayed and Frayne are really wise, unsparing and often funny as they write about the physical and emotional highs and lows that they faced. They faced all of that on their own, which is what makes both books fantastic reads."
Patricia McCowan's comments have been edited and condensed.