The Mountain Between Us, by Charles Martin
Published by Broadway Books, 1st June 2010
Genres: Contemporary fiction, Romance, Adventure
Format: Hardback
Source: Borrowed
Synopsis
Stranded in Salt Lake City by a blizzard, two strangers decide to charter a plane together, hoping to return home sooner. Ben Payne is a talented surgeon, returning home from a conference, Ashley Knox, a magazine writer, is desperate to get home for her impending wedding. When tragedy strikes, the pair find themselves stranded in Utah’s most remote wilderness in the dead of winter. Badly injured, miles from civilisation, without food or shelter and with only Ben’s mountaineering gear to help them survive.
Ashely and Ben’s chances of survival look bleak, as days in the mountains turn to weeks and their hope for rescue dwindles. How will they make it out of the wilderness and if they do, how will this experience change them forever?
My thoughts
This book was compelling, gripping and absolutely unputdownable. I read it through in one afternoon because I simply couldn’t put it down and I just had to find out what happened.
Almost everyone has at some point wondered how they would survive in this kind of extreme situation, I know I have. But I also know for sure that I would not have coped as well as Ben and survived those mountains. This survival situation is one of the reasons I couldn’t put the book down. As soon as one obstacle was seemingly overcome, another presented itself; be it lack of food, being stalked by a mountain lion or being caught in an avalanche.
I loved the alternation between present events and the recordings which Ben made on his recorder, recounting stories from his past with his wife. This really helped to ground the story, but also to give perspective to Ben himself, not a very forthcoming man.
The ending of the story took me completely by surprise as well. I won’t give away any spoilers, but it just tied off the whole thing so well. I loved it! There was a film adaptation made of this book not so long ago, so I will be intrigued to watch that and see if it even comes close to living up to the book.
My rating: 5/5