Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

What readers think of Into The Wild, plus links to write your own review.

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

Into The Wild

by Jon Krakauer
  • Critics' Consensus (9):
  • Readers' Rating (131):
  • First Published:
  • Dec 1, 1995, 207 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 1997, 255 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Reviews

Page 15 of 18
There are currently 137 reader reviews for Into The Wild
Order Reviews by:

Write your own review!

suzy

boring
Into the wild is a boring book. I chose to read it in my English class from a list of books because everyone was reading it so I figured it would be good. I guess I was wrong. I don't know how anyone can feel sympathetic for chris. he didn't have to become a bum and travel across the country, only to be found dead. also the story line is boring. Nothing exciting really happens.
Kirsten

Poor
I had to read this book for english, and I did not enjoy it as well as I thought I would have. Sure I understood it better than my friends, but that's beside the fact that the book bored me to death. I agree with other people when they say there are to many characters, and if you're doing a project on it, there is way to much information to be found on it.
Dan

Ew....
I was supposed to read this book for english and i tried reading but half way through the book i just stopped. There are way too many characters, like 2 in each chapter and the book just sucked.
Gary

In To The Wild
This book is boring so i thought i could go on sparknotes and read em' but it ain't there.its the most boring book i ever read AP english 2 sucks.
Unknown

Wow, this is incredibly boring...stay away!! Every time i tried reading it, i fell asleep!! However, if you really love semi-biographical-nature-type books and you REALLY try to get "into it"...it's not that bad. I'm just warning you...it can be REALLLLL boring!!
hottie

this book was way bad..dont read it...it was confusing and i had to do a huge project on it and it was extremely hard to do...
PEACE OUT
Alan

I finished this book, and the only redeeming quality was it was quick. The bad part was reading a hopelessly idealistic young man venture into the Alaskan wilderness to literally live off the land, only to realize his error and die a stupid death. What is so romantic about it? Trying to be Jack London? Starving a lonely, cold death because you thought that you could make such an unforgiving realm work? That's your best accomplishment? As smart as Chris was (with his freshly minted Emory degree), he wasn't smart enough to know that his arrogant, foolhardy and excessively naive outlook ultimately got him dead. The sad part is he passed the point of no return to learn that lesson, something he never could learn about in his Tolstoy or Thoreau books.

My other beef was the author trying to compare his experience to that of Chris McCandless' fatal adventure. Again he seems all too happy to try and spin a "Noble young lad that I once was whose only fault was to die," kind of tale. Jon Krakauer may be trying to channel some of that pure adventurism (more like let's see how close to the sun I can fly without the wax melting) or star struck, I don't know. The comparison to others like McCandless only worked to describe others that have tried to do what Chris did (and died like him) before him. I think the author fell too hard for Chris's story since he was once like Chris, which has warped his writing of the situation and kills any objectivity that is sorely lacking here. Glossing over people who are gratuitously cocky - and die as a result - as great adventurers is not my idea of a morality tale type of story.
harry Ballsack

it was a book

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Lessons in Chemistry
    by Bonnie Garmus
    Praised by Parade and The New York Times Book Review, this debut features a 1960s scientist turned TV cooking star.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Ginseng Roots
    by Craig Thompson

    A new graphic memoir from the author of Blankets and Habibi about class, childhood labor, and Wisconsin’s ginseng industry.

  • Book Jacket

    Awake in the Floating City
    by Susanna Kwan

    A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.

  • Book Jacket

    Serial Killer Games
    by Kate Posey

    A morbidly funny and emotionally resonant novel about the ways life—and love—can sneak up on us (no matter how much pepper spray we carry).

  • Book Jacket

    The Original Daughter
    by Jemimah Wei

    A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

Who Said...

When I get a little money I buy books...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B W M in H M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.