Alessandra is reading…

The Wild Truth by Carine McCandless – Review and Thoughts

“That’s the purity of nature. It may be harsh in its honesty, but it never lies to you.”

Chris McCandless, via Carine McCandless

After helping Jon Krakauer with bestseller Into the Wild, Carine McCandless had more to say about her and her famous late brother, Chris’s, shared childhood.

The synopsis on the book jacket says that The Wild Truth is Carine telling Chris’s entire story, not just his story from Into the Wild that withheld a lot of truths and trauma. I felt that this memoir was bigger than telling Chris’s entire story. It also gave Carine’s story and even her other family members’ stories.

“Perhaps the greatest bequest that Walt and Billie have offered us, in the end, is how their actions have brought us all together.”

Carine McCandless

This memoir gives Into the Wild’s readers a view into a different perspective…Similar, I feel, to what we’ve been seeing with celebrity trials recently, the media reporting things and most of it not being true. It shows that there’s always more, even when you think you’re getting everything through what’s written on the page in front of you.

This memoir is extremely triggering and I strongly urge others who are interested in it to proceed with caution and take breaks as needed while reading.

“When critics claimed his disappearance was little more than an incredibly selfish act of cruelty toward his parents, I took note.”

Carine McCandless

The Wild Truth has definitely inspired me to reread Into the Wild. When I first read it last year, I had never thought that Chris was selfish or out to hurt his parents – I had thought there was something going on with his parents, but not what Carine explains in detail. I had an amazing childhood growing up with parents who loved and supported me – and with that, I also have a wandering soul and love being adventurous (with some plans, of course). I can’t imagine being an adventurous soul and having the childhood that Carine and Chris had. I can’t imagine the necessity of getting out of their house and their lives. I’ll be rereading Into the Wild with a greater perspective and a deeper understanding of Chris.

These words just reach the tip of my feelings towards Carine and her surviving siblings, but I think it’s admirable, commendable that they have all broken the cycle of violence and also have such great relationships with each other.

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Thank you to Carine for sharing her and her siblings’ story with me – being so vulnerable, especially in this situation, must have been extremely hard and I’m sure continues to be hard. Thank you to Carine for her strength and inner beauty. 

“While I have intended to represent Chris as I believe only I can, I was careful not to speak for him, because I think no one should.”

Carine McCandless