I couldn't get through this title. It ended up not being for me, but I hope it finds a hope with other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A fascinating memoir about a young woman who struggles to survive her child and embarks on an adulthood of travel and adventure. Carrot Quinn has such a strong and unique voice. I found it fascinating to step into her shoes and read about a lufe so different than mine.

Thank you to the publisher for providing this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

"The Sunset Route" is an unusual and unique memoir. You cannot help but be sympathetic/empathetic when reading about Carrot's neglectful childhood with a mentally ill mother and no father. Yet, at times it is hard not to feel annoyed at her when reading about ways she is wasting her potential. However, she is also rather street smart/savvy, and resourceful, finding ways to survive and at times temporarily thrive. The stories about riding freight trains were interesting, as that is not something most people today will experience, and because I had never really thought about all that is involved in riding the rails.

This is an absolutely beautiful memoir about a woman who grows up in Alaska and then leaves and travels the country via freight train. It's about grief and neglect and being lost but trying to find yourself. It is wonderful in its telling on how this country treats those with mental health issues and drug issues. It's gritty and I could not put it down.

I always find it hard to rate and review memoirs. Who am I to critique someone's life story, displayed so vulnerably and publicly for all to see? However, this one was very written so beautifully and poetically, that it wasn't hard to rate.

So many raw, honest and painful experiences are recounted in these pages. There were many heavy topics explored, such as drug and alcohol use, homelessness, abuse and neglect. I'd recommend folks to look up trigger warnings and take care when reading. But, these are true recounts of events that Carrot Quinn lived through- and could only escape from through even more sacrifice and hardship, and it is a privilege for so many to be able to simply read about them rather than experience these traumas firsthand. I am in total awe at Carrot Quinn's strength, and ability to find joy. It is a true testament to human resilience.

I am in awe of how Carrot survived her upbringing. The resilience and courage to make her way in the world that often did not protect her. I am still impacted by what I read about her life. I applaud your Carrot.

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to read this one because I changed my kindle email address and forgot to update it on Netgalley, so it never arrived to my device. *facepalm*

I really enjoyed The Sunset Route by Carrot Quinn; I found it to be an incredible memoir that really reminded me of Educated by Tara Westover. Although I typically prefer to listen to memoirs, I found this title to be a thoroughly engaging text that I never wanted to put down.

This memoir will tear your heart out and put it back together again. Carrot Quinn is a beautiful writer and she bravely shares her story about how mental health, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, poverty and more set her on an unusual path. Her descriptions of riding the rails are vivid and despite the sadness of her past, I was astounded by her ability to reinvent herself. Definitely a must-read for those who love non-fiction.

Book review: 'The Sunset Route' explores trauma, redemption, healing
By ASHLEY RIGGLESON FOR THE FREE LANCE–STAR Aug 28, 2021
In many ways, reading Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, “Wild,” was a transformative experience for me. So, I was skeptical when I heard Carrot Quinn’s new memoir, “The Sunset Route,” which is about her experience riding freight trains, was being compared to this great work of nonfiction. But I loved Quinn’s book so much that I want to pass it on to others.

“The Sunset Route” opens in the middle of the action. Quinn is on a freight train in Oregon, and while readers are quickly learning the ins and outs of riding freight trains, we initially have no idea how or why Quinn came to ride trains at all. We are only aware of what a gritty pastime it is, how risky, how cold. But we soon begin to learn more about Quinn as she flashes back to her childhood in alternating chapters, and the portrait she presents is one of a fractured family.

Quinn is 6 when the first flashback begins. Her father is out of the picture, and her mother is schizophrenic. Quinn is often hungry, as there frequently is not enough food for her to eat. As the memoir progresses, we learn that Quinn and her brother are abused in other ways as well.

As an adult, Quinn lives a life on the margins, sometimes working but also Dumpster diving and shoplifting to eat. She feels that she needs to be on the move, so she rides freight trains and hitchhikes from place to place, rarely staying anywhere long. And yet, she begins to heal.

The more I read “The Sunset Route,” the more I thought that comparisons to Strayed’s earlier work were quite apt. These breathtaking works are both about redemption and healing, and I think it would be fair to say that Quinn does for childhood trauma what Strayed does for grief.

As Quinn connects to the nature around her, she begins to process her trauma, and readers can follow her development from its rocky start to its poignant conclusion. While it at first seems that people constantly fail her, Quinn reminds us that people do not have to carry their trauma for their whole lives. And though she still feels the need to keep moving, she has come to a point where she can state a new healthier and happier truth.

Ashley Riggleson is a freelance reviewer from Rappahannock County.

This review was originally printed in the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg VA.

It is hard for me to give a star rating a book that speaks of an author's own life, as how can one quantify that? However, it is really easy with an author like Carrot. I truly enjoy her writing style - I love the focus on detail and little things and a nonlinear story. Admittedly, the switches in time felt a little disjointed but I was more interested in her story than nitpicking that. The story itself was fascinating and vulnerable, chaotic and introspective. The book felt satisfyingly full circle to me, with the past catching up to the present on top of a mountain.

4.5/5 stars

Carrot Quinn has had an interesting life with plenty of fodder to make a truly readable memoir. In this book, she shares her experiences riding the rails by jumping on freight trains. Mixed in are memories from her less-than-perfect childhood. Her younger years are weaved with poverty and neglect. She was moved from place to place and never felt settled. Through her experiences we see her learning more about herself and developing an appreciation for the natural world. This novel is in turns heartbreaking, inspirational, raw and adventurous.

What to listen to while reading...
Head Over Feet by Alanis Morissette
All Apologies by Nirvana
Peaches by The Presidents of the United States
If I Ruled the World by Nas
Fire Water Burn by Bloodhound Gang
Hopeless Romantic by The Bouncing Souls

3.5 stars Thank you to BookBrowse for giving me this book to read and review. Published on July 6, 2021.

Carrot Quinn was running. Maybe not running from, but trying to run to.

Carrot - born Jenni - had a miserable childhood. A schizophrenic mother, a brother raised apart from her, and grandparents who were cold and unloving. In her early teens Carrot had had enough. She took to the rails. She spent her next eight or so years mostly living on other peoples couches, eating from dumpsters, and hiding in tree lines waiting for the next train to take her to where she thought she needed to go. Carrot saw a lot of the US and felt the freedom of confinement, but she also felt loss. The loss of a mother, the loss of family, the loss of a home. She was always searching. Those losses stayed with her.

This is a raw exposure of a memoir, offset by the beauty of both nature and mankind, as seen by one young woman trying to outrun her troubles. The life of Carrot Quinn has been one of heartbreak wrapped in self discovery.

Carrot Quinn can write! What a beautiful storyteller. I was completely impressed by the way she crafted descriptions and I felt like I was actually there - riding on a train, filthy, freezing cold, and about to fall in a hole into the tracks below. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and I wanted to savor the prose. However, sometimes it was too much. When she was traveling on the train for the third time, I found myself skimming some of the prose and skipping to the dialogue. It became repetitive and my attention wandered. The story would have benefitted from a little more editing. I found myself more interested and engaged in her stories as a young child living with a schizophrenic mother in Alaska.

This story opened in me well of compassion for the young people like Ms. Quinn who I see around town, living in dilapidated homes and eating food from dumpsters. I know that I have made assumptions about them based on their clothing and their smell – they must be drug dealers, dropouts, criminals. I don’t think I ever thought about the circumstances that may have led these people to live like that. I know now that I will now see them with new eyes.

I really enjoyed the beauty of Quinn’s writing, and I look forward to reading more of her work. My thanks to NetGalley for an Advanced Readers Copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in any way.

What a bizarre, beautiful, haunting, jarring, disjointed, nonlinear memoir. It's a traumatic, appalling journey the author takes through childhood. I related to more than I like to admit, although I can't imagine undertaking the dangerous train hopping she did.

I wanted something a little more...insightful in the end. It's hard to say from this reading what she keeps or discards from this time in her life.

This was certainly interesting! A lot of the chapters were pretty repetitive though, so it often felt like I was reading the same train-hopping story over and over. I would have liked more chapters about the author’s current life doing long distance hiking as well. All in all, not totally for me, but interesting nonetheless! Be aware that this book deals heavily with child abuse.

Thank you to Netgalley for the free copy.
The Sunset Route is a memoir that shows a story about finding yourself when cast adrift on a world that is not set in your favor. Carrot Quinn grows up in Alaska under the care of her mother who is neglectful of her children as well as her own mental health. The narration is non-linear, having the author riding a train across the country one moment, and then reliving a childhood memory the next. The writing is beautiful and the story is moving.

This is an interesting memoir by a woman who dealt with so much as a child but was able to grow into her own. Quinn's mother was mentally ill but she stayed with her. Riding the rails, oddly, gave structure to her life where there had been none before. The challenge in reading this is that it jumps around - not always a bad thing but it would have been helpful in a memoir about learning who you are and becoming that person. That said, she's a resilient and forgiving individual. I enjoyed the vignettes of riding the rails and the people she met along the way. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

I enjoyed this book very much! It is Carrot Quinn's story of how she grew up, raised (or not raised!) by a schizophrenic mother, how her early years so affected the rest of her life, and how she learned to deal and live with it.

It is a sad story, but it also feels like an awakening. And it reminds the reader of all the people out there who have had such difficult situations to deal with and how each of us should be more empathetic and understanding of everyone around us. We're all so different and come from a different place. Carrot Quinn learned that riding the rails, travelling the country, and thru-hiking were her ways of finding herself and living life the way she needed to do it. Wouldn't it be nice if we all could find that "thing" that we needed in life? :)

I'd like to thank NetGalley, Carrot Quinn, and Random House for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

This is a difficult book to read, not for the style of writing, which is clear, vivid and almost poetic. But for the content. A tale of a lost child, born into great poverty with a mother deep into mental illness, a father who disappeared and a brother separated from her through foster care. Somehow this young girl is not kept in foster care and remains with her impaired mother, for awhile, untended, starving, alone and essentially wild. Eventually she finds a way to make sense of the world by traveling the rails, learning about the world that way. It is a tale that aches. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.