“McCulloch will keep you blasting through the pages like you don’t have a 9-5 job that starts tomorrow morning.“
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You know when you hear or see a very mad type of sport, one that makes you think ‘that looks sick, not for me though, stay safe xo’? Mountain climbing is on that level. This goes for skiing and snowboarding too. Looks fun, but no thanks. Now, imagine that level of danger with the concept of a killer on the mountain?
Welcome to Amy McCulloch’s adult debut. A wild ride.
Following journalist and failed mountaineer Cecily Wong, the reader is invited onto an expedition with her to climb one of the highest mountains in Nepal. A dangerous climb that means more to Cecily than many will know; her career is on the line, so she must reach the top.
If she makes it, then she’s promised an exclusive interview with the elusive, enigmatic and handsome Charles McVeigh; a mountaineer notorious for climbing without oxygen.
As the group is introduced, inviting readers into the eclectic members who have all been hand picked by Charles, the climb gets off to a rocky start. The trip is filled with simultaneous robberies, and accidental deaths that Cecily suspects are murders. With the lack of oxygen, and a storm on the way pushing the group of climbers against the clock, it seems as if everything is against them.
McCulloch’s use of pace is both excellent and exerting. As a reader who knows absolutely nothing about mountain climbing, it’s fairly easy to understand the level of danger these people are in, willingly. She expertly weaves in the standard procedures that is required of mountaineers; acclimatising, inventory of equipment and standard mountaineering lingo – that should had left someone as dumb as me dazed – with the events that is expected as a thriller.
“It’s what makes the reader perhaps think that they could totally solve this if they were on the mountain themselves. I promise you guys, you couldn’t.”
Scattered between the chapters are drafts of Cecily’s blog posts, and transcribed interviews with members in her team. It offers a layer of context that is outside the mind of Cecily, and is able to solidify the voices of McCulloch’s supporting characters. It is able to provide them a backstory outside of Cecily’s chapters, and an edge of empathy that wouldn’t be elicited from the reader otherwise.
The desperation for Cecily to reach the top is so potent that a reader could almost taste it, and with McCulloch offering small pieces of Cecily’s past that lead her to this moment, it forms a hunger within the reader to see her succeed.
Even when danger has almost reached its peak, and the concern for her safety grows, you ache for her to achieve her goal so bad that it’s almost surprising as a reader that I didn’t urge her to just leave sooner.
Readers will border on paranoia with Cecily, while the rest of the people on the mountain contain little reaction to those who have lost their lives – apparently that’s normal, bruv! – and so she’s left to wonder on her own whether it’s truly just an accident, or the work of something sinister.
McCulloch excellently utilises the elements of mountaineering to further this doubt, as mountaineers are prone to hallucination and developing paranoia the higher they climb. It’ll leave the reader feeling gaslighted by an ex, in this instance the ex is the author.
“Seriously, Elise is an experienced climber who does it without oxygen, while looking good, she’s the IT girl.”
In the darkness of the mountain, it’s easy to brush off behaviour and occurrences due to a climber’s lack of oxygen, and with this occasionally being the case, the reader will become prone to second guessing their predictions. Is that instructor acting suspicious? Did Cecily really hear someone whistling outside her tent in the middle of the night? Did that person who’s accused of stealing money really ever get framed?
Bitch, you won’t know until the end!
It’s what keeps the reader holding out, in the vain hope that their paranoid predictions are validated and confirmed by McCulloch. It’s what keeps the reader blasting through the pages like you don’t have a 9-5 job that starts tomorrow morning.
It’s what makes the reader perhaps think that they could totally solve this if they were on the mountain themselves. I promise you guys, you couldn’t. We can’t even last a minute on a stairmaster, so solving crimes whilst getting used to a lack of oxygen is something I hope none of us are ever dumb enough to try without training.
As this all surrounds Cecily, the reader will also come to aggressively care for her new friends and teammates: Zak, Elise and guide Galden. With Zak being a tech millionaire funding the expedition, Galden a Nepalese native working on the mountain, and Elise being one of the few mountaineering influencers who makes sure her lipstick is reapplied before taking a photo, McCulloch peels back their layers to create nuanced and endearing supporting characters that you’ll care for just as much as you do Cecily.
Seriously, Elise is an experienced climber who does it without oxygen, while looking good, she’s the IT girl. One who is always supportive of Cecily, even when she doubts her ability to make it to the top. It is Elise, Galden and Zak who push her on.
“McCulloch peels back their layers to create nuanced and endearing supporting characters that you’ll care for just as much as you do Cecily.“
BREATHLESS comes to an explosive and anxiety-inducing climax when Cecily must make the final stretch of the climb on her own, in the middle of the night, with a storm blinding her path. By now, the hallucinations have gotten to her, and still despite that, she is coherent enough to know she needs to push on.
The climax elicits a stress induced cry of relief and frustration, because this is where shit really gets real. Cecily has a limited amount of oxygen, and someone who is following her. Getting down the mountain is going to be twice as life-threatening as when she climbed up, because on top of these factors comes a storm that is almost blinding. Freezing limbs is this storm’s hobby, and Cecily isn’t equipped for it.
Now, it may seem crazy that readers would willing support this time of self endangerment up until this point, but what McCulloch excels at is how normal the surrounding members of the team behave upon every fuckery that occurs.
Usually, personally, if this were me, I’d recite ayat-al kursi and bounce. But this isn’t a usual setting, and with more experienced members consistently able to explain away every marginally worrying incident, it’s easy to slip into a very fragile false sense of security. So Cecily, I won’t drag you for staying, because I get it.
Does she make it? Does she die? Find out for yourself! And be sure to read all of the ending, because McCulloch almost punk’d me.
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Soraya Bouazzaoui is Aurelia’s Literal Hotties columnist which whilst never giving too much away, focuses on reviews and recommendations of titles by woman of colour, both fiction and non-fiction. @halalltakeaway
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