- In our opinion the book was exceptionally good. The book not only helped the reader create a vivid picture in his mind but it also described the experience each survivor had emotionally, as well as physically. We didn’t think many people would survive but there were fourteen in the airplane and then the two others who walked to civilization.
Piers Paul Read, the author, described the experience down to the last detail. If a person was eating human flesh, he included the taste as well as the repulsive feelings the survivors had toward eating the dead. When the rescue from chile finally came, Read vividly describes the stench inside the airplane as too strong for the three rescuers to stand. The rescuers decided to pitch a tent outside in the cold Andes’ air, instead of spending one night in the beat-up airplane. The survivors were somewhat offended by their gesture of hospitality to the little they had, and then the rejection they received in return.
The fact that the survivors were a part of a rugby team is what helped the fittest survive. If the two men who went for help had not been fit, then there was no way they would have made it to the bottom of the mountain. The two would have died the first night in the Andes instead of surviving nine more.
Over all, the book was first rate and we would recommend it to others. It’s the type of book where one could sit down and read it all day. If one thinks eating the dead as appalling and disgusting, then we don’t necessarily recommend it. Otherwise it’s an emotional and enlightening adventure that makes a person appreciate their surroundings.