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. 

To no one's surprise, I read another Mt. Everest memoir. This one is so much more than that. Yes, Silvia was the first woman from Peru to climb Everest, as well as many others of the Seven Summits. Her storytelling, however, goes beyond mountaineering to explore childhood, trauma, family dynamics, a belated coming of age, and more. I highly recommend this, even if you aren't an armchair adrenaline junkie like me. (CW for SA, alcoholism, and general themes of peril)

I picked this book up because Everest fascinates me. I would love to make it to Base Camp one day and I'm in absolute awe of the men and women to make it to the summit. 
 This book goes so much deeper into Silvia's life and sexual abuse and her reason for becoming the mountaineer that she is. Parts of the book were not easy to read. I cringed many times, sometimes because she went into detail about the abuse and other times because of the choices she made to numb her pain as an adult. But wow, what an incredible story. 
 This one will stick with me for a long time. 

Thank you to Henry Holt and Company/Macmillan Publishing Group for sending me an ARC of this title. I received this copy for free and this review contains my honest opinions. 

 

In the Shadow of the Mountain is exactly what it says it is: a memoir of courage. I didn’t fully understand what that meant when I first picked up this book, and even though the author and I share few life experiences, I felt an overwhelming sense of kinship while reading. Silvia Vasquez-Lavado is the first Peruvian woman to have summited Everest, and in this memoir she weaves together her story summiting Everest with her childhood in Peru. Memoirs don’t usually impact me much: I enjoy reading them when I pick them up, but often I don’t think about them after I’m finished. In the Shadow of the Mountain, however, will stick with me for a very long time. 

 

Silvia has an ability to retell gripping events with vulnerability and compassion and I couldn’t stop reading. Summiting Everest firmly remains off my adventure list, but I did enjoy reading about it and I will definitely be looking for future books by this author. While there are graphic depictions of abuse throughout this memoir - both of the abuse the author endured and that which other women have shared with her - there are overarching messages of healing and breaking cycles of abuse. Above all, and one of the messages I found most powerful, your trauma is not the same as your identity. 

 

I did have some difficulty with the passage of time in a few sections, and I wish there were pictures. While there might be pictures in the final version, I did spend a lot of time looking things up so I could better visualize them. However, after searching for examples of the Everest ladder crossings…maybe pictures are unnecessary (there were many moments during the Everest parts that were absolute nope moments for me, and the ladder crossings were definitely one). 

 

Thank you again to the publisher for sending me a free ARC of this title.