Reviews and Comments

The story was very captivating and funny. Also the reading performance by the author was pleasant. During the book I could really feel the pain and many times ended up laughing out loud (luckily while I was in my car by myself so I no one will take me for a crazy person). In addition of this being an entertaining and interesting story about an endurance feat, I also learned a lot about history. Having spent my early childhood in a cold war world I felt that the history lessons clarified that world, which I had mostly already forgotten, for me quite a bit. All in all a very entertaining story with an educational component which was very well written and performed.

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.