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An interesting young man's tale - but a flawed book

I read this book because it was recommended to me and also due to my interest in mountaineering adventure. Mark Pfetzer has certainly a full and interesting life than many of us would be envious of. He's definitely done some very interesting things and should be extremely proud of his achievements.

It is nice to see someone so young who has the nous and determination to find a goal and go and get it - this should be an inspiration to young people that they can dream and achieve incredible goals, even if it's on a much smaller level.

Having said all of this, I would not recommend this book to adults and would say it's better categorised as a 'young adult' book. This book isn't put together very well and needs significant editing. We are constantly reminded that Mark is a '16 year old' kid or 'only a kid' and while I appreciate this is the main selling-point of his story, this is repetition became extremely fatiguing.

Many comments, statements and stories are said in an off-hand kind of way, without going into enough detail or not going detail that could of interest. At a guess, I would say that this is because the ghost writer, Jack Galvin, perhaps didn't have sufficient experience to render the story vividly and the editor didn't take enough time to do their job.

(Now this is a personal gripe.) Whilst Pfetzer constantly claims he wasn't motivated to climb Everest to break age-records and I understand that he did have quite a bit of mountaineering experience to do so, I wasn't convinced that this wasn't a significant driving factor.

Personally, I think the high mountains, where the difference between life and death is so fine is not a place for kids. I understand that this is one of the main points of the book - that Mark 'is pretty much an adult', really mature etc, but I just don't believe you can compact real life experience. If he had died in the '96 storm like so many others, I'm sure his parents and supporters would have been crucified.

If you're looking for mountaineering book, I'd highly recommend Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, which is far superior book, both for the quality of its writing, and also for its success in portraying the magnitude, grandeur and determination required to scale to the heights of the world.