Reviews

The Mountain Story by Lori Lansens

thebooktrail88's review against another edition

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4.0

Why a booktrail?

See the literary locations on the blog - Booktrail of the Mountain Story

Four people go up a mountain near Palm Springs. Three return. What happened up there and why were two of them determined to go up that day in particular?

Story in a nutshell

Wolf Truly has a mission. He’s off to the mountain, his mountain – the one where his memories are not good ones. He takes nothing as he is not intending to come back.

However he is not the only one with a link to the mountain. Three women he meets in the cable car also seem keen to find something there. There’s talk of a secret lake they say, and they want to to find it.

This is not the landscape for being stranded on but that’w what happens when the weather changes and so their bed for the night is a lethal ridge with the lights of the city twinkling below, so close and yet so terrifyingly far away.

Whether anyone will get off the mountain is quite another story…

Blimey this was good. If you’ve ever been hiking and worried about getting lost don’t read this! Ironic that Wolf should be going up the mountain to commit suicide but then find out that the mountain has a lot more in store for him that he realized.

The women he meets – when their stories came out it added to the weird isolation that was already more than building up. Desperate times call for desperate measures. That mountain is unforgiving and will wait for no one.

Four people on a mountain and only three come down…..the fate of the fourth person is tragic as it is the culmination of a series of events from that very first tram up to the mountain station.

The tension builds as the isolation and rawness of the mountain envelopes and pokes each one of the people there.

The legend stories told of men who had died there, poisonous plants and tragic details of the mountain really added to the overall sense of ‘how the hell will they get out of this situation’ the lights from Palm Springs below tends to mock them as they seem so close despite their being so lost.

A mountain tale which shows how suffering and survival in the wilderness show the extremes of the human spirit and how four people can come together under the most pressurized of situations.

farmlady1's review against another edition

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4.0

Picked this up from the library today. Can't wait to start it tonight. It sounds like my kind of story

Loved the characters revealing a bit of each of their real stories along the way and the relationship as they developed. The story was very bittersweet. Especially, fitting all of the pieces together at the end of the story. A very entertaining read.

sbachtell's review against another edition

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5.0

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I'll admit it took me a few pages to really get into the story, but once I did I was hooked. I was caught up in the characters - actually emotionally invested in them. You love who you're supposed to love, and dislike the one you know almost from the beginning will be a pain in the rear. Throw in a few great plot twists and this was a thoroughly enjoyable book.

maeclair's review against another edition

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5.0

This is one of those books that stays with you long after you read it. Wolf Truly goes to the mountain on his eighteenth birthday intending to take his life. Instead he ends up in the company of three women, all of them becoming lost in the wilderness.

What follows is a gripping story of survival interlaced with glimpses of the lives of all four characters. Wolf’s personal story is told in sections that take us from his childhood to the “now” moments of the book, allowing us to understand what brought him to the mountain in a suicidal frame of mind. I enjoyed the way the author wove the two stories together, and was especially fond of Wolf’s close friendship with his friend Byrd.

These characters grow on you. At the beginning, there is no emotional connection to the women, (the book is told from Wolf’s point-of-view throughout), but by the end, I felt like I knew each of them personally. Like Wolf, I grew to understand them through their ordeal on the mountain, and became attached to each.

The ending was superb, and took me by surprise. Bravo to the author. I haven’t read a five-star book in a while, but if I could give this one more than 5 stars I would. I highly recommend The Mountain Story for a riveting and engaging read.

spoonerreads's review against another edition

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5.0

That moment when you are reading a novel but it's so well written and descriptive you think it's a memoir. That's what this book was like.

adogmomsbookishlife's review against another edition

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5.0

This book shook my soul! I finished it in less than 24 hours. I couldn’t put it down. From the opening line to the closing paragraph, I was hooked. I loved every thing about this story. Every. Single. Thing.

zedoeee's review against another edition

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4.0

Addicting, yes. But not totally believable, I questioned a few parts of the story. I like how the book is written to his son, it's a good angle.

bibliobabe94's review against another edition

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3.0

An unsettling survival story.

twistinthetale's review against another edition

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3.0

I struggled during the early portions of this book. I found the actions of the characters, all deeply flawed, grated and the predicaments the group find themselves in on the mountain a little contrived. As I read, on, though, the characters grew on me and I was intrigued by Wolf's tragic youth. This was a survival story, a struggle against nature, but was also a psychological struggle as each character battled their own human weaknesses.

kelownagurl's review against another edition

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I enjoyed this book. I listened to the audiobook on Scribd when I was sick. It was a page-turner. Would make an interesting movie.