First off, I loved all the details about Appalachian Trail through-hiking. My wife got a bit obsessed with following AT through-hikers on TikTok for a while, so I was reasonably familiar, and this made the book feel very real. I also loved the characters, and they are what drew me through the book.

Unfortunately, I had heard so many great things about the book that my expectations were maybe raised a bit high. It was a really great book, but the emotional journey was a bit more simplistic than I had expected, and I felt some of the dialogue could have been zhuzhed to be a bit more realistic.

I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I expected, but it’s still a brilliant book, especially if you care about hiking.