Back of Book: 

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless.

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Nonfiction | Adult | Biography | Travel | Memoir 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

A travel essay that explores human actions and the consequences that come with them set in the backdrop of the Alaskan wilderness. 

"Into the Wild" is often viewed as a controversial book. Mainly because so many people have such strong opinions about Christopher Johnson McCandless. I think it is mean to judge him too harshly as an individual that has never met him, but I gleaned a ton from witnessing Krakauer tell the account of this young man and how he ended up perishing in the Alaskan wild. This book is filled with a ton of speculation which only adds to the intrigue and the wonder that I felt while reading it. 

This book moved a tad slow at the beginning, but I found myself so fascinated by the last fourth of this book that I couldn't bear the thought on not knowing what happened to McCandless for another day. The first half of this book was pretty mid for me, but the latter half was stellar! 

Seeing wanderlust in so many formats was also a neat part about this book. I am definitely the kind of person that would rather curl up in bed with a nice book and never leave my house if I didn't have to, but this doesn't mean that I'm not fascinated by the fact that many people are so curious about the world around them. Hearing about McCandless and Krakauer's journeys into the bush was quite interesting, and I found the philosophical musings to also be a highlight of this book. 

Overall, I didn't love much of my time with "Into the Wild," but I certainly recognized the beauty that this book is. Wanderlust and the fear of missing out persists greatly in many individuals, and this book illustrates that perfectly. The mystery aspect of this book had me rapidly flipping the last dozen or so pages in the hopes that some truth would come from all the intrigue. Though no one can be sure what exactly happened to Christopher McCandless, I found Krakauer's take-aways to be quite astute, especially once he reached the site of the young man's death himself. This definitely will not be my go-to nonfiction rec, but I found it to be a worthwhile read.