Karen Auvinen’s memoir is a gift to the reader. She is a keen observer of the natural life in the Front Range of Colorado. Here she has lived through fire and flood, from season to season. During that time she has tried to make peace with her past and forge a path forward. Her writing is exquisite whether describing her unique friends (a mountain support system), Elvis (her canine companion) or observing the natural world surrounding her home. Through hard times, family drama and attempts to join in the community, the reader is firmly on Karen’s side. You want to be her “wing woman.” You want to be in her sphere. And, if you cannot at be there, at least you want to learn how to be present within your own environment….to appreciate the now, and those who surround you with love. No, this is not a New Age type of book. It is an all age type of book. It empowers and connects. Buy a copy for yourself and then another one to leave behind when you are a houseguest of a dear friend. Readers who appreciated Gretel Ehrlich will find a welcome here. And readers who enjoyed the illustrated Beloved Dog by Maira Kalman will find the words here that make Elvis the most faithful friend. Highly recommended.

I enjoy reading memoirs. People sharing their stories, often overcoming or making peace with history. The author's life story is difficult at times, told with beauty and purpose.

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. I hope, in her writing this book, she finds the peace she has been searching for.

An excellent memoir that will have broad appeal with its themes of domestic violence, illness, grief, travel, wilderness, solitude, pets, wildlife, and relationships.

Rough Beauty is aptly named in that it is both a rough beautiful story that takes place in a rough beautiful area of the country that is beautifully told in its roughness. Karen Auvinen has allowed the reader to live with her in the often barren, often dangerous, but always beautiful mountains of Colorado.

We experience her despair of losing her home, her resilience of starting over, her learning from mistakes both in wilderness living and in relationships. We take a seat at the local water hole for some poetry reading. We wonder why she lives the way she does when it appears she could have been living a much easier life.

Through her experiences, we meet the townspeople, her family and her dog. The central character of the book though for me was not Ms. Auvinen or any of the others. It was the rough beauty that is the Rockies of Colorado.

I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley and Scribner in exchange for my honest review. Thank you.

Scribner
Pub Date 6/5/18