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In My Boots by Amanda K. Jaros (Book Review #2060)
Amanda K. Jaros’s In My Boots: A Memoir of Five Million Steps Along the Appalachian Trail is a deeply affecting, gracefully written memoir that charts both a physical odyssey and an emotional reckoning. In the spirit of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Jaros invites readers to walk beside her as she leaves behind the confines of a sheltered life—and the emotional scars left by an abusive, volatile father—to embark on a six-month, 2,160-mile solo journey across the Appalachian Trail.
What unfolds is more than a tale of grit and endurance. In My Boots is a love letter to solitude, resilience, and the surprising power of community. Expecting isolation, Jaros instead finds connection: trail names and traditions, late-night campfire conversations, the unspoken bond between those who choose to live in motion. The memoir balances these moments of camaraderie with vivid depictions of the trail itself—from the wind-swept balds of the South to snowstorms in the Smokies and the rugged alpine beauty of the White Mountains.
Jaros’s writing is both grounded and poetic, capturing not just the topography of the land but the inner terrain of someone coming into herself. Her vulnerability is palpable as she reflects on a childhood shaped by fear and silence. Yet with each step forward, she finds a new voice—one that learns to claim joy, agency, and the right to chart her own course.
What elevates this memoir is its quiet strength. It doesn’t shout its message of empowerment but lets it rise organically through honest storytelling and the relentless rhythm of boots-on-earth. There’s humor, too, in the stinky socks and trail magic, and warmth in the friendships that arise in places far removed from any map. Most importantly, there’s a deep authenticity in the way Jaros allows the trail to mirror her emotional transformation—each climb, each blister, each moment of doubt forging something truer.
In My Boots is a must-read for lovers of memoir, nature writing, and stories of personal transformation. Amanda Jaros has crafted a journey that reminds us that healing is possible, and that sometimes, the longest paths are the ones that finally lead us home.
Written by Jeyran Main
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3 Comments on “In My Boots by Amanda K. Jaros (Book Review #2060)”
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Just finished reading IN MY BOOTS by Amanda K Jaros. A fascinating read for a septuagenarian who isn’t physically able to attempt any feat that requires such stamina and determination. I enjoyed the exposure to the hiking experience—my kids are avid hikers themselves. The Shenandoahs are nearby. This book is being passed along to my DIL today and then to my sister…and it will go from there to another. Highly recommend this book—so absorbing, vivid, puts one on the journey. It did take me 3 days to get through but mind you we bought a new tv so most of my time has been spent trying to figure how the (bleep) to operate new features! Congratulations to Amanda and all the thru hikers for your achievements. There is always HOPE for each of us. Be kind out there folks.
Pat D from VA
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This is a wonderful book. Inspiring, uplifting, spiritual, honest, uncompromising and unafraid. Its actual, somewhat-clumsy title is “In My Boots: A Memoir of Five Million Steps along the Appalachian Trail” by Amanda Jaros, who at the time (in 1995) was a women just out of college and who, uncertain of what to do with the rest of her life, decides to start by hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, all 2,160 miles of it, from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin in the middle of Maine, passing through 14 states and a lot of wet weather. It takes her six months. And it changes her life.
From the Amazon review: “She expects to pass the time in the solitary and peaceful wilderness, reflecting on her life’s direction. Instead, she finds herself part of a community ripe with stinky socks, buckets of ice cream, and trail magic.” And a ton of time listening to the Dave Mathews Band on a Sony Walkman (and on a side-trip to a real live DMB concert). And collecting self-prescribed ‘trail names,’ like her own, Tamarack, and including Jurnee, Hercules, Jiffy Pop, Slow Buffalo, Sunshine, Biohazard, Crazy Legs and Batgirl, and Biscuits and Gravy (a couple). And a fortuitous meet-up with Grey Beard, the oldest woman who ever completed the full Appalachian ‘thru-hike,’ at the merry old age of 91. Individuals all, their motto is “Hike your own hike.”
The writing strikes exactly the right tone. Ms. Jaros has had a rough time growing up with a verbally abusive father but this has not dampened her enthusiasm for the best thing she’s ever thought of doing. It reads as if she completed the journey only recently, the 300-page story is tightly written and beautifully descriptive (both the wide swath of deep-woods America and Ms. Jaros’ inner struggles; she almost quits several times), but she kept copious notes in her journal and her writing is full of the wonder of the just-discovered.
Needless to say, it isn’t all beer and skittles. There are a lot of painful blisters, cold sweat, dirty laundry, worn out boots, broken hearts (she makes several new friends along the way) and temptations to just give up, but she perseveres and completes the journey far more self-confident and fulfilled than she ever could have imagined.
It would make a fine movie. Of course, there’s already “Wild,” a Reese Witherspoon vehicle based on Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 memoir, “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,” but I’ve only seen the movie, not read the book. The two books that “In My Boots” most reminds me of are “Adirondak Passage” by Christine Jerome, about kayaking through the mystical, magical Adirondaks, and “Fledgling” by Hannah Bourne-Taylor, a moving memoir about her experience rescuing and hand-rearing an adorable finch (and, later, a swift) in rural Ghana.
All three are, for me, must reads.
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