Title of the Book: Into Thin Air
 Author: Jon Krakauer
 # of Pages: 256
Star Rating: ☆☆☆ ☆

 Review:

The tragic events that took place on Everest, May of 1996 made headliners globally and their story was known world wide. Even after 20 years the events spark attention after the recent release of a movie that was based off of these events. Jon Krakauer, an avid mountain climber and reporter, was enlisted by the magazine he worked for, Outsider, to climb to the summit of Everest and write an article on his experience. Summit day, May 10th, seemed to be an average, clear day good enough for the summit push. Tragically, mother nature at 29,028 ft is unforgiving and can turn brutal in the blink of an eye. Of the six members of the Adventure Consultants team to have reached the summit, only Krakauer and one other team mate made it alive down the mountain. At the end of it all, from four expeditions who attempted Everest that spring, twelve people had died by the end of May. Jon Krakauer tells his first hand story of the events on Everest. From the trek to base camp, and the friendships and bonds made along the way, to the rogue storm that consumed the mountain on May 10th, and the many failed rescue attempts for team members afterwards.

This book is a great thriller and adventure memoir. I am not typically an avid reader mostly because I find it difficult to discover something engaging enough to want to keep reading; especially with memoirs I struggle with this. The story of Krakauer's climb up Everest is a thrilling novel that really sucks you into wanting to find out what's going to happen next or that makes you want to keep reading because you want to find out what happened to someone. Something that I really appreciate about how Krakauer wrote the book is that, as you could assume, being a climber, he writes it very much as a serious climber would. There is a lot of climber lingo and talk that your nonclimbers wouldn't really understand. Even though he does this, he does a good job of explaining terms and giving background so that an avid climber would connect on a deeper level with his story but your average person can still read, understand and enjoy it as well.

While I did really enjoy this book, it can be difficult to read and follow if you don't quite understand his writing style. As he moves through the book and you run into new people, Krakauer tends to fall into tangents on the backgrounds and life stories of some of the people and some of the history of the mountain. Sometimes this makes it difficult to follow because he will be in the middle of talking about part of the climb and that part might involve someone in particular, and all of a sudden he will completely transition to their entire life story. I found it difficult to read because I would begin to become intrigue with the events of the climb and then all of a sudden he'll stop to talk about someone's pregnant wife and how the met. After reading the entire book you do realize that a lot of the background information comes in handy for understanding the people and their motives a little better and you feel more connected to them as well.

Overall, I think anyone who enjoys a good thriller and is interested in the world of mountaineering would enjoy reading this true story of some pretty crazy events. Through the parts where Jon Krakauer begins to tangent, I would recommend to just continue reading through and you'll be thankful for the information by the end and he always picks up the thriller right where he left off.