Customer Reviews

The Kid Who Climbed Everest

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Someone once commented on this book saying that they had "read better accounts of climbing a mountain" but in saying that I think they have entirely missed the point of the book!

I picked it up and was unable to put it down. Maybe it isn't the best piece of literature around but is certainly one of the most honest. I was gripped by Bear's account of events, emotions, respect, friendship and faith and finished the book feeling both exhausted and inspired!

I would recommend this book to anyone that feels they are incapable of achieving anything greater than life behind a desk.

Climbing Mt. Everest at the tender age of 23 is a great feat in itself. Only one in a thousand climbers under the age of thirty in top physical shape ever reach the summit.

What people don't know is that Bear Grylls had just recovered from an accident that nearly claimed his life, after his parachute tore at 11,000 feet during an Army training exercise. After spending months in rehab recovering from a broken back, he decided to follow an impossible dream.

There are few surprises here - you know the ending from the title alone. However, his tales of adventure, close calls, and vivid and very candid descriptions of life in the mountain will keep you reading and cheering him on!

Although his prose pales somewhat when compared to literary classics such as "Into Thin Air", and he lacks the experience and knowledge of legendary climbers such as the original "Kid", David Breashears ("High Exposure"), what he lacks in these areas he more than makes up in his enthusiasm, humor, and love of life. You cannot help but wonder what the older, more experienced climbers he is compared to - or even you - were doing at his age.

At 23 Bear Grylls decided that he was going to seed and needed to do something so he and a buddy went off to Mt. Everest. He wrote a book about the experience and it left me alternately laughing and awed. First, forget what you think you know about mountain climbing. Getting to Everest is an experience in itself that requires close encounters with bathrooms that are really just huts with mountains of other people's poop on the floor, diarrhea (inevitable-- the locals are none too clean and unless you want to offend them by not eating or drinking with the them you will get a stomach bug and/or a severe respiratory infection) and air sickness which can kill you if you don't attend to it right away. And because there's no place to bathe you will stink and after awhile even the female yaks will avoid you. Vomiting plays a big role in attacking Everest. On the very first night getting acclimated Bear was serenaded by the sounds of his buddy chundering into his boots. It's not romantic and not a bit like the adventure movies.

Still, Bear has a sense of humor and being 23 at the time he made the absolute grossness of it all incredibly funny. He starts out as a sweetly goofy kid (much "younger" than I was at that age)and gets more serious as he goes up the mountain. He has a couple of nearly deadly close encounters and life in the Death Zone of the mountain is not cute at all.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and was sorry to come to the last page.

I could not put this book down...finished it in 3 days, and I work full-time! I am a non-climber, but have read many books on people's experiences on Everest. This is one of the best accounts I've read...I was riveted and felt like I was right there with Bear on the mountain. Well done!

(Presumably the book has been re-titled for the US market - it's published as "Facing Up" in the UK.)

Bear was 23 when he wrote the book - the text sometimes reflects this as he expresses a kind of undergraduate attitude and sense of humour. It's not great literature - not nearly as well written as "Into Thin Air" for example.

But he vividly describes the conditions on the mountain - from the squalor of Base Camp, to the brutal, painful fight at extreme altitude and it was this that gripped me.

I really enjoyed the book - and I believe it does add to the genre. He has a different perspective - as he says in the text, most Everest climbers are much older and more experienced and their writing reflects this.

Bear's book is a breath of rarified fresh air!

I have just finished TKWCE and I am totally blown away. I have been a fan of Bear Grylls ever since I saw my first episode of Man vs. Wild and this book has elevated him greatly in my eyes. He is a man to be admired.

Bear's storytelling style made the entire book sound as though it was his interior monologue from Man vs. Wild which made for a quick and entertaining read. As a military man myself as well as an amateur mountaineer, I had no trouble identifying with Bear and his team as he described the pain, fear, exhaustion, and sense of adventure intrinsic to an assault on Mt. Everest. I enjoyed the humor, humility, and introspection throughout the book.

Obviously since Bear wrote this at age 23, it is not Into Thin Air as many previous reviewers have mentioned. However, I enjoyed it a great deal more than ITA as Krakauer had a MUCH different climb and was surrounded by a great deal more controversy than Bear Grylls. Additionally, I think that the editor should be roundly thrashed for merely spellchecking and submitting the manuscript to the publisher!

For somebody new to mountaineering or in the lower age bracket, this is a great book to start you off into Mountain Literature. It is not the flowing epic of Into Thin Air by Krakauer, nor is it the intensity driven, nihilistic assault of Kiss or Kill by Twight. This book is very simply about "A Kid" with a young man's perspective and worldview talking about scaling Everest. Bear makes no secret of the fact that he is a church going man, true, so if that turns you off, this might not be the book for you. However, all would do well to remember that there are no atheists on battlefields,...or in deserts,...or across oceans,...and certainly not on mountaintops!

I really enjoyed this book. I am a non-climber and I was able to follow the technical aspects of this book. Bear Grylls takes you onto the mountain with him- you experience the boredom of Base Camp and the day-to-day aspects of trek life, the fear of passing through the Icefall and going every higher on the mountain, the pure exhaustion and pain the body experiences when climbing at such high altitudes and the triumph of standing on top of the world. He allows the reader to see his fears, insecurities, hopes and dreams.

Bear has an easy and relaxed style of writing and uses more of a conversational technique in his prose with the added ingredient. He is humble in his abilities and also in his accomplishments. The book is a descriptive account of the full adventure to reach the peak of Everest. The writing is in dispersed with extracts from his own diary entries during the climb. The book provides a very good first hand account of the extreme difficulties and good fortune that are needed to successfully climb Everest.

Despite having an Eton education and a Tory MP as a father, Bear seems remarkably down to earth. However, the only disappointing aspect of the book is the constant reminder of the authors religious beliefs. These are tediously repeated and become more and more frequent as the levels of danger increase. They are needless and should be left to his bible classes and not to those who have paid good money to learn of his adventures.

All that is left to ask is does Bear really stay in hotels during the filming of Man vs. Wild??

Russ

Let me start by saying I thought this book was excellent. I've read about all there is when it comes to Everest and this is not your typical Everest book. Bear, best known in America for the TV show Man vs. Wild, does an excellent job bringing you into his climb of the worlds highest peak. What the "other" Everest books always seemed to lack, in hindsight, was humor, something this book has no shortage of. Probably one of the most interesting and favorite parts of the book for me were his descriptions of the mountain. He does a great job painting the picture of what he sees, something I've always thought the big name Everest writers have lacked. His descriptions of the view (top to bottom) and the western Cwm/South Col really helped me envision a place I will likely never see. Bear is a storyteller and it shows in this book. As I said before, I found the humor a pleasant surprise and I found myself laughing out loud on numerous occasions. But Bear also knew how to bring the book to a serious point when the story called for it. His story is amazing and inspiring. Do yourself a favor and buy this book.

Bear Grylls delivers a compelling tale of high adventure. In addition to the technical aspects of climbing, I learned a great deal about the history of the Himalayas and its people. I felt as if I was with him on the expedition, with all of its discomforts and unexpected challenges.

However, I was really hoping to hear this tale from the perspective of a wide-eyed youngster. And since Bear Grylls wasn't actually a kid -- he was 23 years old -- I did not get any of that youthful sense of wonder. This was a matter-of-fact story laid out by an accomplished adult.

(For the story of an actual kid summiting Everest, check out 13 year-old Jordan Romero's story, THE BOY WHO CONQUERED EVEREST)

The Boy Who Conquered Everest: The Jordan Romero Story