Missoula by Jon Krakauer
Published 2015 · 416 pages · 100,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Journalism & Reportage, Law, Nonfiction, Politics & Society
How hard is Missoula to read?
Missoula scores 20 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 25 out of 100
- Legal and forensic terminology in clear context.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Abstraction: 28 out of 100
- Specific cases building to systemic critique.
- Information density: 48 out of 100
- Dense with testimony, legal records, and institutional detail.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Case-by-case structure with chronological threads.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Missoula as representative of a national crisis.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Restrained tone that makes institutional callousness more visible.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- Some cases resolve; systemic change remains elusive.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- Multiple cases interwoven with institutional analysis.
How Missoula is regarded
Missoula holds a literary regard score of 43 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.