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Into The Wild – Jon Krakauer

September 1, 2026 / Sheree / 0 Comments

When I picked up this book, I was already roughly familiar with the story of Chris McCandless, having seen the movie based on Jon Krakauer’s Into The Wild years ago. The thing I recall most clearly about that film was how angry it made me, how infuriated I was at this selfish young man – and how much I resented the filmmakers for romanticising his “ill-considered Jack London fantasies” (an apt description that Krakauer himself included in the book). I picked up Into The Wild purely in the hopes of finding a more even-handed portrayal of McCandless – or, at least, a less-enraging one.

Into The Wild was first published in 1996, after having originally been written as a 9,000-word article for Outside magazine (called ‘Death of an Innocent’) in 1993. It went on to become an international best-seller, with more than 170 editions published in 30 languages.

Here’s a brief run-down: in 1990, Chris McCandless graduated from Emory University, and promptly cut off his family, gave all his money to Oxfam, and started living as a vagabond. In April 1992, he hitchhiked to Alaska to undertake an odyssey of sorts, heading out into the wilderness with nothing more than he could fit in a small backpack, planning to live off the grid for as long as he could.

He survived for 113 days, living mostly out of an abandoned bus off the Stampede Trail, and his emaciated body was found there in September. The following year, Krakauer retraced his steps, interviewing everyone who interacted with Chris on his ill-fated journey, and Into The Wild is his recounting of the young man’s life and death.

There seems to me to be a lot of glaring omissions in Into The Wild. For instance, Krakauer doesn’t explore – or even explicitly mention – the ways in which McCandless relied so much on the kindness of strangers while seemingly giving nothing in return. He exploits the loneliness and heartaches of others to get the food, housing, and transport he needs, but there are no descriptions of any equivalent generosity on his part, no instances of him helping out anyone in need along his circuitous route to the Alaskan wilderness. And yet, at every step of the way, kind-hearted strangers make it possible for him to undertake his big adventure – his life’s dream (and, ultimately, his cause of death). So, nothing in Into The Wild really challenged my initial impression that this is a selfish, arrogant, middle-class kid who thought he was a great philosophical mind but really had no capacity to translate that into a meaningful, positive life.

Krakauer at least confirms that I’m not alone in my ire. Into The Wild contains extracts from many letters he received in response to his article about McCandless for Outside. Most of them were written by bewildered and enraged Alaskans, bemoaning McCandless’s idiocy and hubris.

There is also a chapter that includes various stories of other young men (it’s always men, yet another privilege not mentioned or accounted for by Krakauer) going “into the wild” and finding it ain’t all beer and skittles. The one that stuck out to me most (indeed, I wished Krakauer had written a book about that adventurer instead of McCandless) was poor Carl McCunn, “an affable absentminded Texan” who booked himself a helicopter to drop him at a remote lake near the Coleen River for a month so he could photograph wildlife… but forgot to book a helicopter to pick him up and take him home.

These digressions mean that Into The Wild doesn’t depict McCandless’s story in strict chronological order, but it does place his decisions and fate in an important context (though later revelations about the extent of his father’s abuse would suggest that Into The Wild isn’t quite the “full” story). The only bit that felt unnecessary to me was Krakauer’s long tangent about his own solo mountain climbing experience, summiting Devil’s Thumb in Alaska at great personal risk. In fairness, he does warn the reader that this detour is coming in his prefatory Author’s Note, but still, I couldn’t help but think “dude, we get it, you too understand the ‘call of the wild’, let’s get on with it”.

I didn’t finish Into The Wild any less angry than I did the movie. In fact, I was even more angry, having now read McCandless’s sister recall eating compulsively after learning that her brother had starved to death (after all, how could she “waste” food when just a few mouthfuls a day could have saved him). To put a loved one through that kind of torment is wretched and unconscionable, in my opinion, and no matter how poetically Krakauer recounts his tale, I can’t bring myself to sympathise.

Read Into The Wild on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

My favourite Amazon reviews of Into The Wild:

“There as sooooo many other stories of people that never get told, but this spoiled white boy gets a book. Disgraceful” – Christian
“Here’s a summary of this amazing book:

Chris M is lucky enough to have a supportive family that helps him by giving him a good home, money, a car and a college education. He turns out to be a huge A-hole. He probably has some mental issues but maybe is just a big jerk. He cuts off all communications with his family and disappears on them. He eventually sets off into the wilderness with basically zero preparation and dies. So now there is one less A-hole in the world.

The end.” – 12 Pound Balls
“I forced myself to get 75% of the way through, but after 50% of the way through the book, the author is just killing trees with stories I could have done without.” – Amanda

Swift And Saddled – Lyla Sage

August 18, 2026 / Sheree / 0 Comments

Swift And Saddled is the second book in the Rebel Blue Ranch series of cowboy romances by Lyla Sage. I can’t honestly remember why I picked up the second book in the series, rather than start at the beginning, but I do recall that I was immediately drawn to the gorgeous cover art when it first started appearing in my #Bookstagram feed.

The story is set in Wyoming on the fictional Rebel Blue Ranch, an 8,000 acre cattle farm that’s about to get a brand-new guest house, with finishing touches overseen by a tattooed interior designer flown in from San Francisco. Ada spends her first night in Wyoming at a dive bar where she catches the eye of a handsome cowboy. They have a steamy make-out session in a darkened hallway… but when they are interrupted, she quickly flees, determined to leave all thoughts of romance behind and focus on her new job.

Of course, when she arrives at Rebel Blue Ranch, she discovers that her mysterious make-out man and her new boss are one and the same. Wes will be running the new Baby Blue Ranch Guesthouse. He’s the middle child of the Ryder family, and he’s clearly got something to prove. He’s instantly captivated by Ada, the (relatively) recently divorced interior designer who has convinced herself that she’s “not nice”. Will they be able to ignore the sparks that flew between them at the bar, or will they have no choice but to fall head-over-heels in love?

Swift And Saddled is told from both Ada and Wes’s points of view, about a 60/40 split between their chapters. The most important character – Wes’s dog, Waylon – didn’t get anywhere near enough page time in my humble opinion. At least that means that nothing bad happens to him, I guess.

Swift And Saddled is occasionally exposition-heavy, especially in Ada’s chapters. She spends a lot of time explaining to the reader exactly how she’s feeling and why she’s feeling that way. It’s all just a little too self-conscious and self-aware to be entirely believable. Both of the main characters are battling against stories they’re telling themselves about who they are, despite all evidence to the contrary (Ada believes she’s unlikeable, even though everyone she meets seems to immediately warm to her, and Wes has classic middle-child syndrome, even though his father is abundant with his love and affection). I’m not sure whether this disconnect between who the characters are and who they believe themselves to be is a deliberate authorial choice, or whether it’s a convenient way to get the reader to emotionally invest in their “struggle”.

I did like the matter-of-fact way that Wes discusses his diagnosis of depression, treated with medication, and the way that revelation is met with compassion and support. His family and their extended hangers-on all seem wonderful, and their unquestioning love for one another is palpable.

All told, Swift And Saddled is a good quick read, a semi-spicy cowboy romance with a great cast of characters – not to mention a great tourism campaign for the humble state of Wyoming.

Read Swift And Saddled on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

My favourite Amazon reviews of Swift And Saddled:

“The story is great and I love Layla’s writing. The design choices however, questionable.” – Natalie
“Even though I liked the MMC, I never understood what he saw in FMC other than the fact she was there.” – MissJonez
“It annoyed me how people constantly tried to make an effort with her and she’d be like ‘they don’t really wanna hang out with me’ like jeez just try.” – Lauren

Lessons In Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus

August 4, 2026 / Sheree / 1 Comment

As hard as it is to be a woman in a man’s world today, sometimes we forget just how much harder it was a few decades ago. In living memory, women were forced to quit their jobs after marrying, required their husband’s signature to open a bank account, and faced innumerable indignities in both the private and public spheres. Books like Lessons In Chemistry remind us just how far we’ve come (and how far we’ve got to go).

Lessons In Chemistry was, in fact, inspired by Bonnie Garmus’s own experience having a male co-worker take credit for her work at a marketing agency. She transplanted that basically-universal experience back to the 1960s, into the then-burgeoning field of organic chemistry research, and created a character – Elizabeth Zott – who refuses to meekly accept the brunt of men’s bad behaviour.

Elizabeth Zott has a masters in organic chemistry from UCLA – already unusual for a woman of the time – and she was eagerly anticipating completing her PhD… until she was (content warning) sexually assaulted by her supervisor. She fought back, severely injuring him with a pencil as her only weapon, and found herself summarily expelled from the program when she refused to apologise.

Still, she managed to land more-or-less on her feet with a job at Hastings Research Institute, where she meets wunderkind Calvin Evans. Despite disastrous first (and second) encounters, they fall in love.

You might expect, if Lessons In Chemistry were a romance novel, that they would face some minor trials and miscommunications before promptly marrying and having babies and living happily ever after – but that’s not what Elizabeth Zott wants for her life. She loves Calvin, but she refuses to marry him or bear his children after seeing what those choices do to the careers of women scientists (see: Albert Einstein’s first wife Mileva Marić, or Marie Curie).

So, bucking the convention of the era, Elizabeth Zott lives “in sin” with her lover, and together they almost-accidentally adopt a dog that they name Six-Thirty. (Yes, it’s weird, but it makes sense in the novel.) Minor spoiler that’s essential for fellow dog-lovers: I’m happy to report that, despite a couple of close calls, Six-Thirty survives the novel and lives a long, happy and healthy life (and plays an integral role in the plot, no less).

That alone might be enough to constitute a happy ending, but Garmus has more in store for readers of Lessons In Chemistry (more spoilers to follow, you’ve been warned).

Calvin dies in a tragic accident, leaving Elizabeth pregnant and alone. As if that weren’t enough, she’s quickly fired from her job at Hastings, as they refuse to have an unmarried pregnant woman on staff. She gets by for a while, having built her own laboratory in her home kitchen and charging consultancy fees to the (male) Hastings scientists who still run to her for help – but soon, she takes a job as the host of a cooking show on television, out of financial necessity.

Her new boss expects her to smile graciously and make delicious, nutritious food while parroting the party line about caring for one’s family, but Elizabeth “refuses to perpetuate the myth that women are incompetent”. Instead, she uses the vehicle of the show – Supper at Six – to teach chemistry to a nation of housewives, and encourage them to follow their dreams outside of domesticity.

Lessons In Chemistry loses steam a little bit in the final act, but ultimately the plot comes together exactly how you’d expect. It’s satisfying to see the villains get what’s coming to them, but it still might’ve been nice to introduce an element of surprise in the conclusion. Still, it’s not hard to see why this was one of the most-borrowed books from public libraries in 2023 and 2024 – it’s an empowering read with a fierce and funny protagonist, about living a life outside the mold.

Read Lessons In Chemistry on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

My favourite Amazon reviews of Lessons In Chemistry:

“Wow! Lessons is right. It’s a giant lecture or woke scold. Who wants to be lectured.” – CHermy
“Totally resistible reead” – Harrison Spencer
“This book is written well, it is just very negative and depressing.” – k
“If you want to read a book pushing feminism, atheism, socialism and misandry… well, look no further. Awful.” – Heather Barnes

My Dark Vanessa – Kate Elizabeth Russell

June 30, 2026 / Sheree / 0 Comments

My Dark Vanessa is a somewhat controversial novel that warrants a big fat content warning right up front. In it, a 32 year old woman, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, re-examines the years-long “love affair” she had with her English teacher as a teenager. If you’re sensitive to the issue of child sexual abuse – or the kind of reader who needs clear black-and-white boundaries – this isn’t going to be the book for you.

The story unfolds across two timelines. In 2017, Vanessa is a hotel concierge in Maine. Her former teacher, who she calls Strane, has been “outed” as an abuser. A journalist is calling Vanessa, begging her to tell her story publicly, and Strane – with whom she’s still in close contact – is equally adamant that she stay quiet. Vanessa is firm in her conviction that they truly loved each other once, and that she’s not a victim of abuse. And yet, doubts start to creep in as more women come forward and more memories are re-examined.

Back in 2000, Vanessa was 15 years old and Strane was 42. He was a teacher at the exclusive boarding school she attended as a scholarship student. Strane reveals in one of their early English classes that he “doesn’t like dogs” – which, even if we knew nothing else about the character, is an undeniable red flag. The “love affair” that follows between Vanessa and Strane is straight out of the classic grooming playbook. It starts with compliments aimed at a lonely and isolated girl, then “incidental” touch, then gifts (he gives her a copy of Lolita, which made me throw up a little bit in my mouth).

My Dark Vanessa is narrated entirely from Vanessa’s perspective, so the reader gets a front-row seat to her “seduction” by this older man. I must admit, it occurred to me many times throughout this depiction that I’m simply too old to see Strane’s appeal. He strikes me as pathetic, as well as gross and predatory. He’s the kind of self-indulgent and manipulative narcissist that I would sneer at if unfortunate enough to encounter him in the wild, above and beyond his repellent predilection for teenage redheads. So, I had to take teenage Vanessa’s word for it that he’s attractive and intriguing to her, even though she’s too young to fully understand the feelings he engenders.

Vanessa is undoubtedly an imperfect victim. For the vast majority of My Dark Vanessa, she denies that any form of abuse took place. She does all the things that “real” victims “shouldn’t” do: she stays in contact with her abuser, she orgasms during his assaults, she defends him to others. And yet, she is a victim nonetheless. It’s a novel that challenges the reader’s sympathies and loyalties – not only in moments of high tension, but throughout. It’s deeply uncomfortable to sit in Vanessa’s cognitive dissonance for 300+ pages.

And yet, Russell has captured something rare and important in depicting the experience of this story (which is all too true for too many) from the inside. I was particularly impressed with how she describes Vanessa’s dissociation as Strane abuses her, and how that impacts the way she processes the trauma. Vanessa is too young to understand the disconnection between her body and her mind is her body’s way of screaming at her to run, even if emotionally she feels invested in what’s taking place. It later bleeds into her “real” life, as these memories are recalled to the surface for reexamination, and she increasingly experiences dissociation triggered by reminders of him. It feels odd to say, but it’s beautifully done by Russell.

I want to offer one final trigger warning for a dog death in the final pages – it’s natural, but heartbreaking, and particularly distressing for sensitive readers after 300+ pages of child sexual abuse. So, steel yourselves. My Dark Vanessa isn’t a fun read, and it’s not one that spoon-feeds the reader, but it’s a deeply worthy and compelling one.

Read My Dark Vanessa on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

Whalefall – Daniel Kraus

May 19, 2026 / Sheree / 0 Comments

If you are at all claustrophobic or squeamish about oxygen-running-low scenarios, you’re going to want to turn around right now. Whalefall, the 2023 novel by Daniel Kraus, will fuel your nightmares for years to come.

The story follows a young man who undertakes a solo scuba dive in the hopes of recovering his father’s remains from the ocean floor. Twenty minutes or so into the dive, he becomes tangled in the anatomy of a giant squid, and finds himself promptly swallowed by a hungry sperm whale. From inside the belly of the beast (literally), he has to figure out how to escape with less than an hour’s worth of oxygen left in his tank.

The blurb of Whalefall pitches it as being similar to The Martian, which is honestly what drew me to it. Having read it now, I’ll warn you that it’s similar only in the sense of it being a survival story, a man battling alone to overcome overwhelming odds in a scenario that seems unlikely on its face. Mark Watney, the hero of Andy Weir’s science fiction adventure novel, is funny and highly motivated. Jay Gardiner, the protagonist of Whalefall, is bitter and humourless. I don’t think I cracked a smile once reading this book. His misery-guts mentality made him a lot harder to root for, and the resolution of his circumstances a lot less satisfying.

Jay’s backstory is revealed through a series of memories-slash-hallucinations he experiences while fighting the effects of nitrogen narcosis (the weird stuff your brain does when it gets too much nitrogen and not enough oxygen). He had a rocky relationship with his now-deceased father, who died by suicide, jumping off the side of a boat to his death in the late stages of untreatable mesothelioma. Jay’s mother and sisters had pushed him to repair his relationship with his father before it was too late; now that it is, he hoped to assuage his guilt by retrieving his father’s bones and putting him to rest. That’s how he ended up in this predicament (swallowed by a sperm whale), and he relies on the knowledge that his father passed down to him – about diving, and whales, and oceans – to find his way out.

Prepare yourself for a lot – a lot – of detail about ocean diving, the gear and the logistics, as well as the anatomy of whales. Kraus doesn’t buck any trends in the long tradition of deeply detailed books about hungry cetaceans (see: Moby Dick). On the upside, the chapters of Whalefall are short – some just a sentence long – so that alleviates the feeling of an information avalanche.

In the end, Jay effectively Slumdog Millionaires his way out of the whale’s belly. By conveniently recalling the bits and pieces his family taught him over the course of his life, he strings together enough knowledge to use the paltry tools he has available to contrive an escape.

As I mentioned at the start, it’s not a good idea to read Whalefall if you’re freaked out about the idea of enclosed spaces and tight squeezes. Even if you’ve got this far in the review to see the spoilers (that he escapes in the end), his experiences in the stomach of a sperm whale are deeply discomfiting. Kraus’s writing is very rich in sensory detail, which makes the times when the protagonist very nearly has the life literally squeezed out of him (yes, it happens more than once) feel a bit too real. Even if you aren’t particularly sensitive to that kind of scenario, Whalefall might be tough to read at times.

I also felt like Kraus tries too hard to be Profound, meditating on loss and frustration at the expense of more realistic moments of matter-of-fact dark humour. Whalefall could have been buoyed by a wry comment or two, but instead it’s weighed down by grief and despair with no relief. I get that being trapped in the stomach of a sperm whale is hardly the time to crack wise, but I think most of us would be capable of making at least one or two pithy observations to lighten the mood. Even the guy from 127 Hours gave us a few laughs.

I’d highly recommend Whalefall to fans of Lanny by Max Porter. The phrasing, the pacing, the perspective, and even elements of the story all align quite closely. You’ll be disappointed if you pick up Whalefall expecting something like The Martian, as I did, but if you’ve read Lanny you’ll have a much better idea of what’s coming.

My favourite Amazon reviews of Whalefall:

“Whiny teenager acts impulsively understanding a stupid mission, gets swallowed by a whale just trying to grab a bite to eat, and then he slowly tortures the poor animal to get his whiny butt out. Wonderful, just wonderful. Oh, he reflects and learns some life lessons while he’s carving up the whale from inside? Ok, then it’s okay – dude learns something he could have learned by sitting on a beach looking out at the waves, but let’s needlessly butcher a multi-ton mammal instead.” – GadgetLover67
“Men will do anything besides go to therapy.” – Amazon Customer
“Overly dramatic and unnecessarily long. I only finished it because I was hoping he wouldn’t make it.” – Ella Blue
“He was lucky, for Moby Dick would gave made short work of him.” – ReadsLots