Hello friends, happy Friday! It’s the end of the week, I hope you’re all doing well! Today I’m going to be posting my review of Michael Finkel’s book The Stranger in the Woods.
The Stranger in the Woods by: Michael Finkel: After almost three decades in the woods, Chris Knight has been caught. After graduating high school, Knight decided to leave the modern world behind; he quit his job and drove until he couldn’t anymore and started to live out in the forests of Northern Maine, secluded from anyone and everything. A true story that felt fictional, Finkel brought Knight’s story to life with detailed writing and reporting. For the most part this was well written and told. The reader was captivated by this story and just fell into a rabbit hole of this guy’s life. How one just goes off grid was wildly compelling and the reader was transfixed. Learning about Knight and the way he lived for so long was interesting, but the way the author kept trying to insert himself into Knight’s life got weird; especially near the end of the book. It’s understood that Finkel is a journalist and he’s doing his job reporting and telling this story, but there were moments where he just went too far that it felt like it was borderline stalking. Finkel used personal anecdotes to help tell the story, and to what felt like, tell the reader how similar he thought he was to Knight. That part was slower to get through as the reader didn’t really care, but the rest of the book was really fast-paced. This book was short, and Knight’s story was interesting, so it was easy to get through but the personal author bits didn’t do it for the reader.
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I’ve never read a book like this, after reading this review – I’m still a bit confused about the overall plot 😂 do you mind explaining like a little summary of the story? 😆
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Oh, I’m sorry that it wasn’t clear enough! Essentially, this is a true story – Chris Knight lived in the woods, off the grid for years. He would steal from people’s summer cabins for food/clothes/books etc. and then one year he was found. Michael Finkel, the author, wrote this as report of Chris, who he was and I think the book tried to explore why Chris did it, but didn’t really get there. I hope that explained it better!
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Ohhh that sounds super interesting, I’ll check it out!
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I hope you enjoy it!
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I am just reading Stranger in the Woods right it now, i am on Chapter 13 and I it is calling me to go read this every moment. I like it but it has crossed my mind that Knight gave Finkel so little information, that he struggled to fill the pages of a book. Thanks for the review following
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For me, the first half of the book was intriguing and I was invested but by the second half I got bored because I agree, there was little to go on and it was more speculation Finkel was going off of. I think Finkel wanted Chris to open up and tell him why he went off grid, but Chris wasn’t really willing to open up to this stranger so the book ended up flopping a bit. I do hope you continue to enjoy it!
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I’m see it for what it is and I now expect to get no answers. As a traveler, and the Maine border being an hr away, this lake is now on my list of places to see
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That sounds awesome, I hope you enjoy!
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We just got a very intense winters storm and extreme cold temperatures and wind. Most of January has been extremely cold. Regardless if the author stocked or immersed himself into Christopher nights life or now, I can honestly say that Mr. Knight has crossed my mind every time I got outside this winter . The book left and impression and that is why I found it worth reading.
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I’m glad you found it worth reading! Yes, when it gets cold, thinking about how he survived in the wilderness for so many years is quite impressive!
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