Play Book Tag discussion

I am on a roll with the books this year (knock on wood). Still waiting for the first clunker, lol. This book was NOT it.

Honestly, I'm really not normally a person who cries when reading. The Housekeeper and the Professor touched me and brought a tear to my eye, but like sobbing? Um, no. Maybe it is hormones, lol. I don't know, but this book really made me cry. The author does a really great job of putting the reader in the midst of a life threatening crisis in a way that you are practically in his brain as he tries to save himself. I was so relieved when he finally emerged (not a spoiler, I mean the guy wrote a book about it, lol), that I sobbed. His resilience touched me.

The author paces the book well. He gives enough background information to make you care about him and his friend, Mike, and then the middle section is riveting. I don't know much about mountaineering, but I think books about it appeal to me because I love the idea of being outdoors doing physical activity, but this sport has an element of risk that I personally can't get my mind around. I'm fascinated by people for whom this is their passion. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster is one of my favorite all time books.

So for me, this book teetered toward five stars. I couldn't put it down. Two things made me give it four. The aftermath of the Rainier climb felt anticlimactic and a little overwrought. I was more interested in why Jim decided to climb again than I really was about how he found peace in the aftermath of a disaster. There was a stronger focus on the latter.

All in all though, if you like reading about outdoor adventure, I would absolutely throw this one on the TBR.

Loved this book, too. I am not an adventurous kind of gal, so I live vicariously through these wonderful books.

Ellen wrote: "Loved this book, too. I am not an adventurous kind of gal, so I live vicariously through these wonderful books."

That makes two of us! I love the idea of adventure, but the reality petrifies me. I'm an armchair adventurer! Thank goodness for books . . .

I am thinking you must have recommended this to me at some point, because it appears you are my only friend who has read it. It was one of the oldest on my TBR, lol, but glad that the Decathlon made me finally read. I really enjoyed it tremendously!