In The Shadow of the Mountain

Autobiography about the first Peruvian woman who climbed Everest, not in spite of - but as a form of therapy for - a violent past that has been marked by abuse, addiction, illness, and loss. In this book, Everest (and mountaineering in general) is often pushed to the background in favour of a vulnerable but honest retelling of the life of a daring woman who has been marginalized from birth on the basis of her gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. That being said, I wouldn't have picked this book up had I known that it's not so much about mountaineering as about Vasquez-Lavado's personal life. It's definitely no Into Thin Air, and at certain points, the tempo dries up and the story is dragged out. Still, the book offers an emic perspective on a range of topics that one easily fails to consider when reading the more traditional mountaineering literature, and in there lies the book's biggest serendipitous asset.