Karen Auvinen

I loved this memoir once I got past the first 50 pages of her rough childhoods (seems required for memoirs). Then it’s a love story to her years living in the mountains, her dog Elvis and food. Karen lived over a decade in a cabin near Jamestown, northwest of Boulder. Her writing about nature and living in the woods is beautiful and frightening. Her love for her dog will appeal to anyone who has loved a dog. And I wish she still cooked at the Mercantile because I would definitely go eat her dinner special.… (meer)

The story of a woman who truly takes the "road less traveled". The adventures, struggles, and triumphs of a person who, by her own definition, "never been someone who takes the easy road. Something in my body gravitates toward rocks and sharp edges, toward storms and umbrage". We've all known people like that, folks that just don't seem to follow societal norms, always choosing to be the "outsider".
I found her to remind me somewhat of Cheryl Strayed ( Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail), however Auvinen seems more personable. I think she was born two hundred years too late, as I can really imagine her being a female "gunslinger" in the Wild West age. I think she would have excelled at that!
This book will make you FEEL! You can feel her despair, her pain, and her joy. She's a very good writer, and has a very good story to tell.… (meer)