The Abominable

Wow. I love mountaineering books, especially about Mt. Everest, and this is a great one. Add a high altitude thriller plot line in the last quarter of the book, and this is a banger. Don't be confused. Dan Simmons is known for horror, but this book is not horror. It was not at all what I expected - it was so much more. If you love high altitude adventures, you'll enjoy this book.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is the second book I've read that is written by Dan Simmons. The previous one,The Terror had a similar documentary style storytelling that I really enjoyed. I love how both of these books blend history and fiction seamlessly, besides being excellent thrillers. While reading these books, you can see how cleverly Dan Simmons utilises the backdrop of the stories as the main driving force; as if it is a major character on its own. If you want to read a long thriller, rich with descriptive storytelling in a historical backdrop, The Abominable is highly recommended.

This book is about a team of climbers who are hired to go to Everest to find someone who was thought to have been lost on an expedition. On paper, I should have really liked this book, but it had quite a few shortcomings I could not overlook. 

I'll just touch on some builet points because I really do not have much to say about it. 

1. It is extremely detailed and the author has a knack for making you feel like you are part of the team.

2. The climbing portions are fun but have WAY too much exposition. Do we really need 15 pages of each and every hold and strategy for a single climb. I know it supposed to be immersive but to me, it gets a little tedious. 

3. The characters were a bit too bland. The surrounding plot was ok, but the interactions were just ordinary. 

4. I did have fun looking up some of the history on mountaineering and learning about the gear they used. 

5. That ending. Oh, no. Just no. That's all I'll say about that. 

Unless you really, really, really (I should put like 4 more reallys) like detailed climbing descriptions with a bit of intrigue, steer clear. Ugh, I just cannot get past how much I did not like the last third of the book.