Nadine's review of Into the Wild (original) (raw)

Goodreads Choice Awards 2024 Opening Round

Discover new books on Goodreads

Meet your next favorite book

Nadine's Reviews > Into the Wild

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Into the Wild
by

105097

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this book. The genesis of the book was an in-depth magazine article, and I suspect that the article was superb. But I just don't think there's enough here to warrant an entire book. As evidence, I point to several lengthy chapters that have nothing to do with the underlying story--they discuss other people who have gone "into the wild" and, surprisingly, Krakauer includes a whole chapter about himself.

My other problem is that I found myself unable to identify or empathize with the central character here. I think that Chris McCandless was not much more than a privileged, entitled, selfish, and undeniably intelligent person who threw everything away and nearly destroyed his family for reasons that weren't any clearer by the end of the book than they were at the beginning. I worried far more about his parents and his sister, who he called his "best friend," than I did about him.

I ended up "finishing" the book by skimming the last 1/3, or maybe even the last 1/2. I almost gave this only 1 star but decided to go with 2 because I want to give Krakauer the benefit of the doubt--it's a well-written book, I just don't think it needed to be written at all.

Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read_Into the Wild_.

Sign In »

Reading Progress

Comments Showing 1-42 of 42 (42 new)

back to top

Add a reference:

Search for a book to add a reference

add: link cover

Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account.

Login animation