Krakauer is a great journalist and storyteller and both are on display here, but his subject matter, Chris McCandless, is so self-involved and irritating that even Krakauer's skill could not make him a compelling hero.

My favorite part of this book was when Krakauer was reading the letters he got in from people talking shit about McCandless and how reckless he was. His adventures feel like the kind of thing that only a rich white guy would do--he didn't have any problems in his life, so he read Walden and decided that that was the only route to live a life that matters, and he died because he was young and stupid and vastly overestimated his skills. If only he had decided to care about other people with the same fervor with which he shunned them; he could have been a great light to many.