“This is the story of how my recklessness became my salvation,” Aspen Matis, Girl in the Woods.
Every girl dreams of what their college experience is going to look like, the friends they’re going to meet and the memories they’re going to make. But those dreams can be shattered in an instant, just like they were for Aspen Matis, author of Girl in the Woods a memoir.
On the second night of college at her dream school, she was raped.
Girl in the Woods is the memoir of how her seemingly outrageous decision changed her life. After feeling shamed and unsupported about her rape by the school and even her family, she made a life-changing decision. She left school to backpack the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), a 2,650 mile path from Mexico to Canada in hopes of finding her place in the world and shedding her former self.
At age 19 she tackled mountains, deserts, starvation and thirst that is unimaginable to many. She put herself through something people can only dream of, and she did it all on her own. Her journey led her through pain as well as healing as she overcame her biggest fear; trust. Aspen is comforted by the loneliness of the woods and begins to find confidence in who she is and who she wants to be.
Aspen survived the heat and cold of desert and mountains that many people fear. I myself, am truly inspired by the courage and bravery the women had to take on such a task. She paints beautiful pictures of what the journey was like and you can feel her pain and her healing as she discovers her true self.
This book is a must read for all. It truly shows women empowerment and what you can be capable of when you set your mind to something and become the director of your life.
“From that unremarkable gap in dense northern forest, I could finally see clearly that if I hadn’t walked away from school, through devastating beauty alone on the Pacific Crest Trail, met rattlesnakes and bears, fording frigid and remote rivers as deep as I am tall- feeling terror and the gratitude that followed the realization that I’d survived rape- I’d have remained lost, maybe my whole life. The trail had shown me how to change,” Aspen Matis, Girl in the Woods.
This story shows that sometimes making a huge, life-threatening decision can actually save you and lead you to a new path and a new life.
The author will donate five percent of any royalties she earns to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network).