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alykat_reads's review against another edition
medium-paced
4.0
This was quite the tale of their survival. They predicted after the crash that there's no way anyone could have survived the conditions on the mountain for one night, yet 16 of them survived for over 70 days in the Andes. They did what they had to do [cannibalism] in order to survive, and had they not done that, there would have been no survivors.
I didn't really care for how this was formatted - jumping between the survivors and their families' search for them. I also don't really know a better way to do it - besides write all of the survivors' story, then follow it with what the families did after. I also didn't personally care so much about what search tactics or who the families went to for guidance. It slowed the story down considerably. I could have just skipped those chapters I guess, but after a while it just got repetitive - some of the families didn't believe their children were dead and went to extreme lengths to do all they could to search for them. It wasn't the part of the story I was interested in, so could have taken it or left it from the book. I would lose motivation to read this when I came to one of their chapters, especially if things were starting to pick up with the crash survivors.
I did appreciate the map the author included, as I referenced it frequently throughout reading.
I didn't really care for how this was formatted - jumping between the survivors and their families' search for them. I also don't really know a better way to do it - besides write all of the survivors' story, then follow it with what the families did after. I also didn't personally care so much about what search tactics or who the families went to for guidance. It slowed the story down considerably. I could have just skipped those chapters I guess, but after a while it just got repetitive - some of the families didn't believe their children were dead and went to extreme lengths to do all they could to search for them. It wasn't the part of the story I was interested in, so could have taken it or left it from the book. I would lose motivation to read this when I came to one of their chapters, especially if things were starting to pick up with the crash survivors.
I did appreciate the map the author included, as I referenced it frequently throughout reading.
orissa's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoy reading about survival but this was tough. A rough read. They were eating bodies before page 100 and I didn't know where it was going after that.
This book convinced me that I would have a very slim chance of surviving after any kind of accident like this. I am so impressed by the resiliency and strength of such young people in this situation. Canessa and Parrado's trek OVER A MOUNTAIN honestly gave me anxiety to read about.
The author, Read, did a great job. Can't believe he was only 30 when he took on this project. Incredible. With 16 survivors, of course there are varying interpretations of what happened over the course of the 70 days they were stranded. But Read distills all of it into a facts-based readable narrative where you still feel emotionally connected to each survivor.
Anyway. I cried.
This book convinced me that I would have a very slim chance of surviving after any kind of accident like this. I am so impressed by the resiliency and strength of such young people in this situation. Canessa and Parrado's trek OVER A MOUNTAIN honestly gave me anxiety to read about.
The author, Read, did a great job. Can't believe he was only 30 when he took on this project. Incredible. With 16 survivors, of course there are varying interpretations of what happened over the course of the 70 days they were stranded. But Read distills all of it into a facts-based readable narrative where you still feel emotionally connected to each survivor.
Anyway. I cried.
straylight's review against another edition
3.0
While it was a solid account of the event, it was a little too dry for my tastes. But then I am not generally a fan of non-fiction, so perhaps that plays a role in my opinion as well. I now feel I have a better understanding of this tragedy and survival story, however, which was the overall goal of my reading this book.
amris's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail
elizakaspar1988's review against another edition
4.0
This was a crazy, absolutely insane story and I have nothing but respect for the survivors, but this book was sometimes a slog to get through. It was written kind of like a long form article, without a lot of emotion or story building. It might it harder to connect to the characters, so it didn't have a big emotional impact when stuff happened to them. I did like how they didn't sugar coat things or try to cover up stuff that they had to do in order to survive.
In the chapters that talked about the search for the plane I wish there would have been more commentary about how close they made it to the plane's actual crash site. Admittedly, I'm terrible with geography but it would have been way more meaningful to me if I knew if the searchers were close at all or if they were completely in the wrong area. And honestly I really never knew, but that may have been a me problem. I did try to help myself with this by constantly flipping to the map (by the preface) whenever they mentioned towns or volcanoes that they were near, but I still didn't do a great job.
In the chapters that talked about the search for the plane I wish there would have been more commentary about how close they made it to the plane's actual crash site. Admittedly, I'm terrible with geography but it would have been way more meaningful to me if I knew if the searchers were close at all or if they were completely in the wrong area. And honestly I really never knew, but that may have been a me problem. I did try to help myself with this by constantly flipping to the map (by the preface) whenever they mentioned towns or volcanoes that they were near, but I still didn't do a great job.