Between A Rock And A Hard Place Review!

Title of the Book: Between A Rock And A Hard Place
 Author: Aron Ralston
 Number of Pages: 342
Rating: ☆☆☆☆

 Review:

Aron Ralston tells an exhilarating, whirlwind true tale that is quite literally Between A Rock And A Hard Place. Ralston starts his journey hiking through the Utah canyons because he has always been an outdoorsman he felt right at home and had no worries. Hiking along, enjoying the view, suddenly, a boulder comes loose and pins Ralston’s arm up a narrow crack in the canyon’s wall. He is stuck and has no one to call in any help. Ralston takes us through this treacherous trek of decisions that he had to make to survive. Food, water, shelter, and help were not options he had to survive. One final, unimaginable decision, is what it takes for him to survive. Can you take a guess at what it is?

The cover of the book is what can already grasp the reader’s attention before they even open to the first page. Ralston tells his story quite straightforward, and I believe that is a tactic that will simply make the reader want to keep reading. A unique aspect of this book is every other chapter is a previous story from Ralston’s past. They were fun stories about camping trips with family, snowboarding days with friends, and just some overall amazing adventures that he has been on. These chapters gave the reader a break from the vivid, intense situation that Ralston was trying to escape from. No other books that I have read have used the tactic of going back and forth between storylines. While it may not work in some books, I found that it worked extremely well in this book. Finally, I believe that Ralston not being a writer before his accident gives us a different perspective of reading, one that the audience I believe will enjoy immensely.

Overall, I found that this book's tone was a bit worrisome but also gave the audience a sense of hope. I say this because there is a memorable scene where Ralston has to drink his own urine. He slowly was running out of water, and he knew that one of the ways to keep himself at least a bit hydrated was to drink the only liquid source that he had. This made us all worry because we didn’t know how dehydrated he actually was, and it gave us a sense of hope because he was doing whatever it took to survive. The one part of this book that I did not particularly enjoy was the language. Ralston was extremely vulgar, it seemed there was a cuss word almost every other sentence! If you can tolerate and get past that, then the book is easily enjoyed. Through the different adventures and trials that Ralston went on, this sets the book up to be its own exciting adventure for the reader.

Personally, I would rate this book a four out of five stars. The reason that I didn’t give it the full five stars was because of the vulgarity, but I do believe that most readers would like this book! It mixes in some light-hearted humor with heart-wrenching, intense scenes that keeps the reader sucked in. I also found it teaches the reader a lesson. ABSOLUTELY, DO NOT, GO OUT ALONE WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE. Accidents like this can happen, and Ralston would have probably been saved a lot of time and heartache. So, curl up with a blanket, a nice cup of hot cocoa, and you will thoroughly enjoy this book.

:)