msmandrake's review
4.0
The stories of the first five women to summit K2, all of whom are now dead. Three were killed on their way down, the other two died on Kanchenjunga and Dhaulagiri. Two British, two French, one Polish...all pretty much nuts. But in their own way, it was very interesting to see how completely different life situations all ended up leading them to the same insane spot. One thing did bug me a bit, since the author obviously could not interview them, she just filled in what she figured they were thinking or feeling at any given moment and this got a bit melodramatic at times. But overall this was quite fascinating.
amadswami's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Better than Into Thin Air; ladies representing!
vanessakm's review
3.0
I went thru a period of mountain-climbing literature after reading [b:Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster|1898|Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster|Jon Krakauer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1158966247s/1898.jpg|1816662] which probably inspired a slew of other non-climbing readers. K2 is actually a more technically challenging mountain than Everest and far fewer people have climbed it. Those who do face a 1 in 7 chance that they will die on the descent. I enjoyed reading about these five women and what drove them to love climbing and eventually die for that love. There was some interesting perspective on the troubles they experienced as women travelling in Pakistan as well as the sexism they face within the climbing community, something no other book I've read on the topic has addressed. My favorite story of the bunch was of the legendary Polish climber Wanda Rutkiewicz, the first woman to successfully climb and descent K2.
I did do a mental eye roll at the author's seeming suggestion that K2 is cursed for female climbers as all of the women died on this climb or future ones. It's a giant rock. It doesn't get angry or sleepy or hungry. It does kill a lot of climbers, male and female.
I did do a mental eye roll at the author's seeming suggestion that K2 is cursed for female climbers as all of the women died on this climb or future ones. It's a giant rock. It doesn't get angry or sleepy or hungry. It does kill a lot of climbers, male and female.
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