THE MIDDLE OF SOMEWHERE by Sonja Yoerg (✮✮✮✮)

Publication date: 1 September, 2015
My thanks to Penguin-Signet for a review galley

Initially, I was very leery of this novel, which centers around a woman with emotional issues embarking upon a major hike, hoping that the journey will give her the physical space from her life and the headspace to contemplate where her life has gone awry. If you have followed my reviews, you know that I absolutely hated Cheryl Strayed’s similar nonfiction memoir, Wild (link to my review HERE). Because of my experience with that book, I thought more than twice about picking this one up.

I am so glad that I wasn’t swayed and agreed to review a galley of this one for Penguin-Signet. While the bones of the story are similar to Strayed’s, that is where the similarities end. Since a good portion of the people who read Ms. Yoerg’s novel will likely have read Ms. Strayed’s memoir, I will use it as a comparison so you can decide if this one is for you based on how I felt about the memoir.

First off, Cheryl Strayed was a complete novice hiker who had absolutely no business heading out alone on a through hike. Her ineptitude caused her to put others in danger, and that is just irresponsible ignorance. Since she felt no connection to nature, the trail as a stunning setting was absent in her book. By contrast, Ms. Yoerg’s main character, Liz, knew what she was getting into and there is a good deal of hiking info and parlance to which even the most casual hiker will be able to relate. As a foil, her boyfriend, Dante, a novice hiker, tags along for the ride, allowing the reader to watch him develop along the trail and see Liz’s strengths shine. Liz clearly loves the natural world (for the most part) and the trail itself is as alive as any of the characters.

By giving Liz one aversion to a natural element, Ms. Yoerg is able to create a woman-versus-nature tension that she successfully plays off from the other major source of tension in the novel, that of a mysterious and ominous pair of brothers who are dogging Liz and Dante’s journey. Wild completely lacked any kind of worthwhile tension, and it significantly weakened the story line. As the novel progresses, so does the level of suspense, pulling the reader through the tightly edited conclusion of their trek.

Both Liz and Cheryl have emotional issues that they are trying to work through. I could never connect to Cheryl as a reader because I disliked her so intensely. Many of her problems were brought on herself through her own choices and she never seemed to learn from them. I found her whiney and immoral. Liz’s issues were no less opposed to my own moral standards, yet I felt sympathy for both her and Dante given that two very different sides of the issue were expressed with equal sensitivity.

This novel is a satisfying blend of hiking tale, emotional journey, and thriller. The only reason that I did not give it five stars is because I felt that the author came right out and told the reader at the very beginning of the novel what Liz’s issues were. This robbed the novel of a lot of emotional tension, an element that I think would have woven nicely with the tension lent to the story by the trail itself, Liz’s one fear of the outdoors, and the sinister brothers.

I do not at all think that you need to be a hiker to enjoy this novel. The world of the trail is well detailed and gives the reader everything they need to know to follow the plot and feel engaged. If you like thrillers with a straightforward story arc, literary fiction, and travel writing, you will likely find this an enjoyable read.