I had seen the movie before, but wanted to read the book, as I suspected it will give more depth to the story. And it did. I think (based on some other reviews I read), to fully enjoy this book, you need to be familiar with basic mountaineering vocabulary, but there's no need to be a mountaineer yourself. The story, obviously, doesn't offer much surprises or twists in the plot. But the essence of the book is how the enthusiasm of doing the first ascent turns to despair due to an accident. The author has very well described what is going through his mind when he realizes that he is effectively dead, but pushes through with very graphic descriptions of his thoughts, mental states and physical suffering in the process.