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Nima
Nima is a young Sherpa woman living in the foothills of the Himalayas, a range so immense and a place so isolated it is impossible to imagine anything existing beyond it. Nima and her sister are both betrothed to Norbu, a local Sherpa, but when Norbu stuns both families by only wanting to marry Nima, Nima flees her father’s wrath and the destiny that had been arranged for all of them.
Disguised as a man, Nima seeks work, and is hired by an American journalist to guide their small group up to Everest Base Camp. The journey is treacherous, and Nima challenges every restriction her culture places on her gender while balancing the duties of her new role as guide. Popescu brings to life the many contradictions of the region through the eyes of Nima: trails strewn with litter overlook majestic views, Buddhist clarity is marred by sexual oppression, and a tourism industry that fuels the local economy also threatening to destroy it.
Disguised as a man, Nima seeks work, and is hired by an American journalist to guide their small group up to Everest Base Camp. The journey is treacherous, and Nima challenges every restriction her culture places on her gender while balancing the duties of her new role as guide. Popescu brings to life the many contradictions of the region through the eyes of Nima: trails strewn with litter overlook majestic views, Buddhist clarity is marred by sexual oppression, and a tourism industry that fuels the local economy also threatening to destroy it.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published May 21, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 4, 2019
I didn't like this book at all but because of its setting I kept going. Nima falls short as a first-person narrator in a book that required an omniscient one; the story seemed absurd; the reader is deprived of interesting, important and even essential information without an omniscient narrator; and some of it just drove me up the wall. Maybe, as Adam Popescu has said, "Nima" is realistic but that's the thing with fiction: it can be true but that's not the same as believable, and I didn't believe Nima's character or her story. Even if Popescu based her on a real person it doesn't matter, because on the page she's a cartoon.
SPOILERS: GO AWAY IF YOU WANT TO READ THIS! (but why would you?)
Nima lives in a tiny town near Mt. Everest, among towns that are easily and often buried by avalanches. In the beginning her only brother dies in one. Her mother has six girls and refers to them by birth order and not names. I forgot they even give girls names and thought these sherpas only number their female children until near the end when Nima uses her sister's names, the first time we learn them. The town and surroundings are isolated and poor. Being a sherpa is the only way to make good money and being lead sherpa for one of the better expeditions gets you away from towns like Nima's and into big houses with servants and some modern conveniences like television.
Nima wants to defy her culture and be a sherpa on Everest. To these sherpas women are considered bad luck on the mountain. When I first took the book I thought, hmmm, Yentl of the Himalayas, how interesting But this isn't that. Later in the book Nima discusses her heroines, female guides on Everest, so she won't be breaking new ground.
Nima, as is the local custom, is engaged and about to be married in an arranged and bartered marriage. She's marrying Norbu, who is also marrying her sister. That's how it's sometimes done there. They can look forward to a life of sharing a bed with Norbu, being baby factories, cooking, cleaning and picking up dried yak dung to burn since there's no firewood. Although she's never been out of the town, never seen a store let alone the capital, Kathmandu, on the day of the wedding Nima jilts Norbu, steals money from her father and runs away to fulfill her dream.
While cutting off her long hair in a cafe bathroom, Nima meets an American journalist who speaks sherpa, who is kind and caring (except when she's being entitled and nasty). She hires her as second sherpa for their expedition of three. She tapes Nima's breasts. She also draws a mustache on her. An educated, experienced American woman draws a mustache on a young sherpa girl. You can't make this stuff up. Oh wait, Popescu did.
We learn, too late and in passing, that it's not even climbing season and that her group and every group is only going as far as Base Camp One. Which is still a trek and those like me who have read "Into Thin Air" and watched documentaries and television shows including "Everest: Beyond the Limit" know Base Camp One is under the Khumbu Ice Fall, one of the most dangerous areas of Everest, subject to deadly avalanches like the one that killed sixteen sherpas in 2014. So it's an arduous trek. But it's also not what you expect when you choose a book expecting someone to attempt to climb Mt. Everest and it isn't even a possibility and you didn't know that until later.
The mustache wears off in no time and so did my patience for Nima. She's outed as a woman but they keep her on and even promote her when the lead sherpa is out of there. She does things way beyond what she should have been able to accomplish given her lack of knowledge and muscle. Rather than Yentl of the Himalayas this is Nima, Superwoman of the Himalayas. Along the way her hat blows off but she's fine. Soon she runs into Norbu, the man she jilted, and at one stop where they're at the same place she realizes she really loves him and she has sex with him. It ends the way it began, with an avalanche. This one takes place at Base Camp One where Norbu's group preceded them and Nima and her three have just arrived. Nima saves Norbu's life by locating him despite the fact he's invisible due to being buried deep in a large area that just had an avalanche, and single-handedly digging him out of the heavy snow with just her hands.
Feminism is about the freedom to make your own choices and that Nima does. But our narrator is an immature and impetuous woman who over the course of the book morphs from Nima who has never carried anything heavier than yak dung patties, to Nima lead guide with taped breasts, a fake mustache and none of the muscle sherpas require to tote heavy loads, and finally into SuperNima digging deep into avalanche snow rescuing Norbu and kissing him. Not the feminist or the story I was expecting.
ABOUT ADAM POPESCU, THE AUTHOR, THANKS TO GOOGLE:
He is a talented print journalist. He's lived in Nepal and known many sherpas. He's very familiar with Nepal and that area, with the lower parts of Everest and the complex and varied sherpa culture which is much more interesting than the simplistic one he gives us here. He's worked for the BBC and written some very good articles for various magazines.
I wish this book had been non-fiction so we could have the benefit of the full scope of his knowledge rather than this cartoony Nepalese soap opera. I wish if it had to be fiction it had an omniscient narrator with the benefit of Popescu's broad knowledge of the land and its people minus the silliness symbolized by the drawn-on mustache that quickly disappeared along with all my hopes for the book.
Thanks to a a search I found an article (not by Popescu) in which I learned, among other things, there is a climbing school attended by sherpas and guides and others. It's all quite professional. Still, no amount of training will ever make the mountain safe for anyone, not even the sherpas.
I'd like to know a lot more of what Popescu knows about the sherpas and their cultures, especially as they relate to the mountain. A search turned up an article of his published months after the book: "Romanticizing Mount Everest Misses the Real Story. An entire population has been overlooked for decades." It's a fast, fascinating read and I highly recommend it.
SPOILERS: GO AWAY IF YOU WANT TO READ THIS! (but why would you?)
Nima lives in a tiny town near Mt. Everest, among towns that are easily and often buried by avalanches. In the beginning her only brother dies in one. Her mother has six girls and refers to them by birth order and not names. I forgot they even give girls names and thought these sherpas only number their female children until near the end when Nima uses her sister's names, the first time we learn them. The town and surroundings are isolated and poor. Being a sherpa is the only way to make good money and being lead sherpa for one of the better expeditions gets you away from towns like Nima's and into big houses with servants and some modern conveniences like television.
Nima wants to defy her culture and be a sherpa on Everest. To these sherpas women are considered bad luck on the mountain. When I first took the book I thought, hmmm, Yentl of the Himalayas, how interesting But this isn't that. Later in the book Nima discusses her heroines, female guides on Everest, so she won't be breaking new ground.
Nima, as is the local custom, is engaged and about to be married in an arranged and bartered marriage. She's marrying Norbu, who is also marrying her sister. That's how it's sometimes done there. They can look forward to a life of sharing a bed with Norbu, being baby factories, cooking, cleaning and picking up dried yak dung to burn since there's no firewood. Although she's never been out of the town, never seen a store let alone the capital, Kathmandu, on the day of the wedding Nima jilts Norbu, steals money from her father and runs away to fulfill her dream.
While cutting off her long hair in a cafe bathroom, Nima meets an American journalist who speaks sherpa, who is kind and caring (except when she's being entitled and nasty). She hires her as second sherpa for their expedition of three. She tapes Nima's breasts. She also draws a mustache on her. An educated, experienced American woman draws a mustache on a young sherpa girl. You can't make this stuff up. Oh wait, Popescu did.
We learn, too late and in passing, that it's not even climbing season and that her group and every group is only going as far as Base Camp One. Which is still a trek and those like me who have read "Into Thin Air" and watched documentaries and television shows including "Everest: Beyond the Limit" know Base Camp One is under the Khumbu Ice Fall, one of the most dangerous areas of Everest, subject to deadly avalanches like the one that killed sixteen sherpas in 2014. So it's an arduous trek. But it's also not what you expect when you choose a book expecting someone to attempt to climb Mt. Everest and it isn't even a possibility and you didn't know that until later.
The mustache wears off in no time and so did my patience for Nima. She's outed as a woman but they keep her on and even promote her when the lead sherpa is out of there. She does things way beyond what she should have been able to accomplish given her lack of knowledge and muscle. Rather than Yentl of the Himalayas this is Nima, Superwoman of the Himalayas. Along the way her hat blows off but she's fine. Soon she runs into Norbu, the man she jilted, and at one stop where they're at the same place she realizes she really loves him and she has sex with him. It ends the way it began, with an avalanche. This one takes place at Base Camp One where Norbu's group preceded them and Nima and her three have just arrived. Nima saves Norbu's life by locating him despite the fact he's invisible due to being buried deep in a large area that just had an avalanche, and single-handedly digging him out of the heavy snow with just her hands.
Feminism is about the freedom to make your own choices and that Nima does. But our narrator is an immature and impetuous woman who over the course of the book morphs from Nima who has never carried anything heavier than yak dung patties, to Nima lead guide with taped breasts, a fake mustache and none of the muscle sherpas require to tote heavy loads, and finally into SuperNima digging deep into avalanche snow rescuing Norbu and kissing him. Not the feminist or the story I was expecting.
ABOUT ADAM POPESCU, THE AUTHOR, THANKS TO GOOGLE:
He is a talented print journalist. He's lived in Nepal and known many sherpas. He's very familiar with Nepal and that area, with the lower parts of Everest and the complex and varied sherpa culture which is much more interesting than the simplistic one he gives us here. He's worked for the BBC and written some very good articles for various magazines.
I wish this book had been non-fiction so we could have the benefit of the full scope of his knowledge rather than this cartoony Nepalese soap opera. I wish if it had to be fiction it had an omniscient narrator with the benefit of Popescu's broad knowledge of the land and its people minus the silliness symbolized by the drawn-on mustache that quickly disappeared along with all my hopes for the book.
Thanks to a a search I found an article (not by Popescu) in which I learned, among other things, there is a climbing school attended by sherpas and guides and others. It's all quite professional. Still, no amount of training will ever make the mountain safe for anyone, not even the sherpas.
I'd like to know a lot more of what Popescu knows about the sherpas and their cultures, especially as they relate to the mountain. A search turned up an article of his published months after the book: "Romanticizing Mount Everest Misses the Real Story. An entire population has been overlooked for decades." It's a fast, fascinating read and I highly recommend it.
September 3, 2019
Having been to Nepal and trekked in the Khumbu region to Everest Base Camp I really enjoyed this book. I'm not sure what year this book was set but I am happy to say that times are changing in regards to opportunities for women to be Sirdars. Our Sirdar was a woman and she was amazing. Born and raised in Khumjung. Some liberties were definitely taken in the book to make it more dramatic but overall depicted life in the Khumbu pretty accurately. The trek from Lukla to Base Camp is an incredible experience and the memories will stay with me forever.
August 10, 2020
A great book for detailing the daily lives of those who call Everest home (i.e. the Nepali, the Sherpa, etc), with its depictions of traditions, culture and beliefs. The descriptions of the topography was also very moving and vivid and provided a nice image of the landscape by which Nima lives. Where this novel fell short was with its protagonist - I never really connected with Nima and felt her journey, while valid and inspiring, was not realistic in how it was presented. This may be a reflection of a male author attempting to delve into the psyche of a female character, and an character of a different background and culture to boot. But overall a strong showing for a debut novel and if nothing else, a great introduction to the region and it certainly fosters a certain amount of wanderlust.
May 31, 2025
Nima has so much heart, and I wanted to love it. It offers a thoughtful look into tourism's impact on rural Nepal -- exactly what I was hoping to learn more about. But the writing holds it back. The narrative leans heavily on telling rather than showing, and the ending feels rushed, as if the author had more to say but didn’t take the time to build the story. Despite clear research into Sherpa life, the voice of the Sherpa girl at the center of the story never quite rings true, and the gap in authenticity is hard to ignore. I’m ultimately glad I read it for what I learned, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
January 2, 2020
In the author's words: 'This book is for everyone who stares up at the sky and wonders what I'd and then pushes towards that unknown. Push.'
A finding-of-self novel with a look inside the life of a Sherpa. Life in remote places cannot be easy, and although the narrator and her family do their best, she wonders what else could be possible, amidst reminders from nature about the life and death of all things.
A finding-of-self novel with a look inside the life of a Sherpa. Life in remote places cannot be easy, and although the narrator and her family do their best, she wonders what else could be possible, amidst reminders from nature about the life and death of all things.
December 24, 2021
Excellent
A testament of strength of the flesh and heart. Interesting characters with internal emotion of fear, love, and determination. A story of cultural differences and a reckoning of together success is possible.
A testament of strength of the flesh and heart. Interesting characters with internal emotion of fear, love, and determination. A story of cultural differences and a reckoning of together success is possible.
January 17, 2020
The female characters were so well written, I kept forgetting the author is male.
January 31, 2020
Heard about this through Outside Magazine. I enjoyed it. The ending seemed a little quick. Maybe he's leaving room for a sequel.
September 11, 2020
I loved her strength and the support of strong people around her. We all need that.
January 31, 2024
This is our book club pick for November, 2019, and otherwise I probably never would have read it. But I am glad I did, and I felt like I learned a lot about the people who live near Mount Everest. This is the story of the struggle of Nima to get away from her father, who has become abusive after being injured in an avalanche. It is also the story of the mountain, and it was sad to me to read about the damage that the climbers have done to the environment, with their plastic bottles and other waste.
May 17, 2022
Good story of a modern Sherpa girl. The story quality drops considerably when she leaves the village and it becomes another story about people trekking to Everest, and the ending is a little abrupt. Still a good book.
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May 17, 2019A beautiful book about a young woman willing to challenge and change her life course. The Himalayas are the background , and today's feminist issues are the centerpiece of this exquisitely and delicatele tale. Thought provoking and perfect for book club discussions.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews