My wife was extremely annoyed by Krakauer's Into the Wild and its higgledy-piggeldy narrative style, several of my colleagues have been unimpressed by the book and its subject, and a few of my better students are so far removed from the protagonist and his self-imposed asceticism that they are uninterested in the rest of the book.  

The more I teach this book, the more I love it, in part because it creates arguments and discussions.  It is a cheap shot to teach a book about a young man who defies logic and goes off on an adventure after graduation to high school seniors that are about to graduate, but I am not above shooting the fish in that barrel.  However, McCandless dies tragically on that adventure, and even though I think that he was a good kid with a noble streak, and he had many admirable qualities, there is no way that I can suggest to students that they emulate him with good conscience.  He was fatally reckless, stubborn, and selfish, even as he was courageous, determined, and loving.  That is why I love this book.  It is a story that generates paradoxes and contradictions.  It presents questions without easy answers.