Book Review: 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston

I saw clips of the movie and vaguely knew the story behind this book already, but I knew I'd eventually have to check out the real deal. The first-hand account of the writer and victim of the situation himself: Aron Ralston. Mild spoilers ahead, though I feel most people already know of this real event.

127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place details how mountain-climber and adventure-seeker Aron Ralston got his right arm stuck below a rock during one of his escapades. He then is stuck there, in the middle of nowhere, with no signs of help showing up soon. For 127 hours the mountaineer is stuck, until finally he takes matters into his own hand (literally) and decide to free himself in a last ditch effort to survive this situation.

This book is pretty much what you expect it to be. An account of Ralston's adventure in the mountains. As that, it does its job pretty well. The writing voice wasn't my favorite, but it was enough to keep me engaged in those parts. It also gets pretty gross and gory, so if you cannot handle any of these things, I recommend staying away from it.

What I disliked was all of the accounts of Ralston's earlier climbing escapades. It's fine for him to describe his earlier events and what got him into mountaineering and climbing in the first place, but, by God, he does come off as reckless and gets into multiple dangerous situations, yet keeps on doing these dangerous things. He also comes off as somewhat cocky with his bragging, and he seems to not learn his lessons. I couldn't for the life of me get into these chapters, they were just boring and not fun or at the very least horribly interesting to read. If he'd mature more throughout these chapters, it'd have been better, yet he keeps tempting fate by going on (solo) dangerous climbs. Heck, as if getting himself into trouble wasn't enough, he also once almost lost two friends who tried to save him during one of his many adventures.

So, yeah, while I do think the parts of the main story are interesting, the writing voice and the author's dangerous desire to thwart death constantly and undergo dangerous walks and climbs don't do it any good.

Rating: 3/5