In My Boots

<p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Amanda K. Jaros's <em>In My Boots</em> does what some of the best works of nonfiction do: it takes the reader on a journey-in this case a journey that is as much mental and emotion as it is physical. -Amy Butcher author of <em>Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder</em></strong></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>When Amanda K. Jaros learns about the 2160-mile Appalachian Trail after college she walks away from a sheltered life dominated by an angry and volatile father and does something unexpected: spends six months backpacking. Alone. 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. What matters on the trail is not a hiker's past or parents her fears or failures but rather what matters is the connections we make with each other.</span></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In My Boots</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> recounts a challenging physical journey following the trail over the windy balds of the South through snowstorms in the Smoky Mountain National Park and above the tree line to the alpine zones of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The journey is also emotionally transformative as this twenty-three-year-old leaves behind the compliant and scared girl she once was. With each step away from her damaged childhood each new friend each stop in another rural trail town she comes to understand that to succeed on the trail and in life it turns out the path she walks must be her own.</span></p>