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shadereads's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Sexual harassment and Sexism
lavi23's review
adventurous
slow-paced
3.0
The outset was great, but - I don‘t know. It seemed to be focused on the „scandalous“ parts. The one climber without scandals was omitted from the book. Though the author acknowledges that society‘s different standards for men/women are a problem (or even sets out on that premise) she just iterates comments like „how could she live her kids at home“ and does a fair amount of slut shaming. Of course I don‘t know the women as well, but I wonder whether they really felt that neatly in the stereotypes of French and Eastern European women.
cathy5boys's review
3.0
Such a scary sport, but so intriguing. Very sad to know that a single mountain has claimed so many lives, especially that of women. Despite knowing the ending, I found this book hard to put down. My rating is more like a 3.5
a_copp's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
3.75
Well written book, but very dense. Took me longer to complete than I expected.
karmakat's review
3.0
While not a feel-good, happy ending type of book (apparently the mortality rate of people who summit K2 is quite high--far higher than on Everest), this is a good book of the woman who have succeeded. I did find it got a bit dense with talking about a ton of different climbers, but you do get a really good idea of the personalities of these women. This isn't the kind of book where you really learn about the mountain itself and the routes/climbs on it, but is really a sort of mini-biography of five different women who have reached this summit.
bmwpalmer's review
5.0
I'm giving this five stars because I think it's a fantastic idea for a book and often executed at the five-star level. But not always - there were a few sloppy areas, and I wasn't always happy with the way the author talked about the conflicts between female climbers and the traditional Pakistani culture they experienced while preparing to climb K2. Sometimes it felt like the Pakistanis were being reduced to caricatures. Which might be fair - goodness knows these women themselves have been reduced to caricatures in almost every other book that mentions them - but still. In a book about women climbing K2, I think this issue could have been explored with a little more nuance.
BUT. Still an amazing book. What an interesting idea, and what a thorough treatment of it! I loved finding out more about the lives of these women, who were so much more than just "first lady to climb K2" or whatever. Their stories inspired me and also broke my heart more than once.
I originally picked this up to kill time before my hold on [b:Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster|1898|Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster|Jon Krakauer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1446286672s/1898.jpg|1816662] came through, but I ended up completely enjoying it in its own right. Excellent read.
BUT. Still an amazing book. What an interesting idea, and what a thorough treatment of it! I loved finding out more about the lives of these women, who were so much more than just "first lady to climb K2" or whatever. Their stories inspired me and also broke my heart more than once.
I originally picked this up to kill time before my hold on [b:Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster|1898|Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster|Jon Krakauer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1446286672s/1898.jpg|1816662] came through, but I ended up completely enjoying it in its own right. Excellent read.