The Hike

What a delight

Drew Magary put his entire Hikussy into The Hike! I loved it!

Not exactly a comedy as it is billed but it was interesting and kept me wanting to find out what happened next.

I’d never heard anything about this book or the author, just stumbled across it while I was looking for something to read on a trip. It was a great story and an easy read, I’ll definitely be recommending it to friends.

The book started out very intriguing, but quickly took a different route. A fantasy tale of mystical characters & situations. Not really my style, found it hard to finish. To each their own.

Review: 4.5 / 5 KEEP LITERATURE WEIRD. “One little taste of the hopelessness and he knew that more was on the way. It was unstoppable. In human form, it would have been twice Fermona’s size and just as charming. He was hopeless to resist it and, at times, he didn’t even try. It was seductive, the way it urged you to stop caring. It could overpower him so easily, which of course was one more thing to be depressed about.” — Drew Magary So, you might have just read that synopsis and reread it because you had no idea what it was talking about the first time. I think that the synopsis gives too much away. All the you should know about this book is as follows: a man goes on a hike in the woods behind his hotel, as the hike prolongs, the stranger things get. This book is what I can compare to one big acid trip (I haven't tried it or been around it, I am just basing this claim on what I know about the drug) in the best way possible. Drew Magary is an author that I had never heard of or read before picking this book up (although while in the middle of reading this novel I decided to pick up his short story, The Rover), but now that I am familiar with this amazing work of science fiction he has created I will surely look more into the novels he has written and has coming down the pipeline. I just want to talk about two things because otherwise I will have to include spoilers which I don't want to do, so I want to discuss a big strength and a big weakness: Ben's character development as the story goes on and the epicness (not a word, oh well) of this journey he finds himself on. “‘You’re a man of your word, no? You take my tooth, and then I take yours.’ ’But mine’s not gold.’ ’Show me you are a man of sacrifice. Show me how far you will go to prove yourself to God.’” — Drew Magary Ben is the main character of this novel, so I would like to say that he is the most important character in the novel due to the reader having to follow him around the whole time. Ben develops as a character in so many ways due to the timeline of the story and the events that he has to endure. I think that I should mention this now so that I can talk about it here and in the next section, but the hike Ben is on takes a lot longer than a normal one, a lot longer. So during this time that he spends on the hike there needed to be some type of character development and I am so glad that the audience sees the emotions he is gaining as the trip goes on. There is one scene with a vision of his son that comes to mind and him having to leave that behind. The idea of his son is brought up again a bit later in the novel, but instead of a vision, this time a rock. The loneliness inside Ben is seeping out from the pages making the reader think about the loss of their own loved ones and what they would do to have the feeling of connection and closeness again. Ben is a strong character that has an interesting view on the world (as it is visualized through his journey). I am so happy that I got to experience what this character endured (well, not all of it, but that is coming up in the next section). The journey really made me feel for the character and all that he was living for and also made me realize that maybe having everything isn't what you want. “‘This future you live in... would I like it?’ ’Honestly, it’s probably not that different from the world you know. Some people are happy. Some people are angry. There are wars. I don’t know if time makes much of a difference. The world changes, but people act the way people always do.’” — Drew Magary I just want to explain the only thing I didn't like about the book. I now see this as a minimal problem, but when I was reading the book I sort of felt like I was being cheated. There are sections in the book that say how much time has passed, examples being: "four years," "two weeks," ect. I understand that the author had to do this to move the story along, but I think it would have been awesome to prolong the story with more of the journey instead of just skipping whole sections. I know that some of the sections would have been really boring to read (aka the castle), but I really think there could have been so much more added to the story forcing the reader to struggle along with Ben in the magical wasteland. That may just be me, but when I finished the novel I thought that the ending more than made up for that little problem. I seriously do recommend this book for its off-the-wall, insane, schizophrenic narrative. It reminds me of Andrew Smith's writing, just in adult form.

I don't read many books, but I picked this one up hoping to get me excited about reading. It did! With only a few hundred pages, the story was told in such an expressive and fulfilling way, without being mundane and tedious with pages of fluff. I was getting into the story and characters, and really felt connected by the end, which was an absolutely perfect ending to such a fun and thrilling ride! I laughed and even got choked up at the end. The world which this takes place in is ancient yet modern, sci-fi yet fantasy. It was a treat to explore the world created in The Hike. Hopefully you will pick up this book, and you can enjoy it as much as I did! Very hard to put down. That won't matter though; you won't want to!