Goodreads SummaryAfter Peak Marcello is arrested for scaling a New York City skyscraper, he's left with two choices: wither away in Juvenile Detention or go live with his long-lost father, who runs a climbing company in Thailand. But Peak quickly learns that his father's renewed interest in him has strings attached. Big strings. He wants Peak to be the youngest person to reach the Everest summit--and his motives are selfish at best. Even so, for a climbing addict like Peak, tackling Everest is the challenge of a lifetime. But it's also one that could cost him his life. Roland Smith has created an action-packed adventure about friendship, sacrifice, family, and the drive to take on Everest, despite the incredible risk. Peak is a novel readers won't be able to put down.
Another problem I had was the basic plot. I love stories of accidental survival situations, but purposefully climbing Everest is so fundamentally stupid I couldn't relate to any of the people doing it except the Sherpas who did it for their family. Climbing deadly mountains seems like a product of a huge amount of avarice. If the author had tried to give us some perspective on other sides to this I could have gotten past it. Sadly, no matter how many people went missing or how many corpses they actually walked past, it never seemed to kick in that Peak and the rest of the climbers could EASILY DIE. He was far too concerned with making the climb a competition or possibly proving himself to his father, not that this is ever addressed.
What was good? The mountaineering details and sparse descriptions of the landscape were ok. I did like the ending and Peak's take-away message. It seemed kind of pointless to make the whole thing a writing assignment yet not have Peak come to any conclusion about writing. I'd recommend to a teen who likes climbing and is looking for an easy read.
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