Into the Wild

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer

 The book starts off after Chris McCandless graduates from college. He comes from a wealthy family. His mother and father were always having problems and Chris felt like everyone was trying to fix their problems with money. After graduation, he had finally had enough. Chris took all of his savings and donated it to charity. Whatever money he had with him, he burned. He ditched his car far out in the desert and had his mail held at the post office as to buy him some time before his parents figured out that he had left. Chris just wanted to experience his life to the fullest. He changed his name to Alex Supertramp. On his journey he met up with lots of other people, some living like him, and others living a more traditional life. For a while he worked at a grain elevator to get some money. Later, Chris said that having all the money just took the fun out of his adventures. The ultimate finally for his journey was Alaska. He said after that he might settle down and write a book about his experiences. To prepare for his trip, he was forced to take a job at a Burger King to buy the supplies that he would need. In Alaska, Alex finds an abandoned Volkswagon bus that he sets up camp in. For the first few weeks, he is having the experience that he had wanted. He hunted and gathered for food, along with a bag of rice for when the game was slow. He eventually ran out of food and had a few too many hunting outings and decided that it was time to head back, but there was something that he didn't account for. When he came back to the little stream that he crossed on his way in, all the melting snow had converted it into a rushing river that he was unable to cross. His only option was to wait it out. As Chris got more and desperate for food, he got sloppy with his berry book and made a fatal mistake. There is no absolute proof, but investigators assumed that Chris ate a poisonous berry, which looked very similar to a safe berry. The effect of the poison was that it shut down your body's ability to digest food. So no matter how much Chris ate, he would still starve to death. 

The story starts out at the end. "Four months later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters." Right off the bat they eliminate the surprise. I was actually wondering when I first got the book whether or not he would survive. My question was answered in about 15 seconds. The story is written using lots of different kinds of mediums. Krakauer narrates some of the story, while other parts are told through stories from people Chris met along the way, or through magazine articles, or through the accounts of his family. In addition to all the different methods of telling the story, the timeline jumps around a lot. It keeps going back and forth between his Alaskan adventure and the rest of his travels. The book also briefly mentions some other similar stories as a sort of warning to the reader. Between all these methods of writing, the story can be tricky to follow if you aren't paying attention. The audience for this book, I would say, is your average teenager or adult. There is nothing too technical about his outdoors life because he was kind of a novice himself. Descriptions are usually pretty general. It is really all about the story. There is also a sort of overarching feeling that part of Krakauers reasoning for writing this was to send out a warning. Kind of like, "look at what happens when you just jump into things that you aren't prepared for". Being an outdoorsman himself, I'm sure that he was cringing over some of the stuff Chris tried to pull off. The reason that Jon Krakauer wrote about Chris is because he did a very similar thing. He went off into the wilderness for a few weeks all by himself. He, of course, didn't do anything as ridiculous and obviously lived to tell his own story.

Enjoyment	Weight	Well Written	Weight	Holds Attention	Weight	Length	Weight	Difficulty	Weight	Story line	Weight
10	3	9	2	10	2	8	1	8	2	9	2
	Points		Points		Points		Points		Points		Points
	30		18		20		8		16		18
	Total Points	Score	Official Review
	110/120	92%	A-		A-