In this memoir Silvia Vasquez-Lavado weaves the tail of her expedition to climb My. Everest as a backdrop to exploring the other challenges in her life and her journey to healing and self-confidence. Much like climbing mountains her story is both challenging, adventurous and at times quite dark whilst also being inspiring & hopeful. 

I came into this book hoping to listen to what drove the author to make this journey to Mount Everest.
What I didn't expect was so much of her private life to be woven into that drive as I was hoping, thanks to the blurb, to read more about the climb itself - teh adventure of getting to the summit, the risks, the people involved, the climb itself.

What I got has a non-linear memoir that had more to do with her family, the abuse at a hands of a family friend that she was gaslight to believe was the start of a life with him, the supression of that and eventually her sexuality, her alcoholism, and the dangers of it, which she ties into different parts of climbing.

I appreciate what the author did and how this narrative was written, for it's well done, but it's also more than I expected for what I wanted to hear. It's well written and I can see the praise of it but I was hoping for more of her talking about the Everest climb itself.