2022 ONTD Reading Challenge discussion

So I chose 'The Mountains Between Us' as my book for January. This is the place to discuss and all that if you are reading it / have read it.

From the author of Where the River Ends, comes this page-turning story of love and survival.

On a stormy winter night, two strangers wait for a flight at the Salt Lake City airport. Ashley Knox is an attractive, successful writer, who is flying East for her much anticipated wedding. Dr. Ben Payne has just wrapped up a medical conference and is also eager to get back East for a slate of surgeries he has scheduled for the following day. When the last outgoing flight is cancelled due to a broken de-icer and a forthcoming storm, Ben finds a charter plane that can take him around the storm and drop him in Denver to catch a connection. And when the pilot says the single engine prop plane can fit one more, if barely, Ben offers the seat to Ashley knowing that she needs to get back just as urgently. And then the unthinkable happens. The pilot has a heart attack mid-flight and the plane crashes into the High Uintas Wilderness-- one of the largest stretches of harsh and remote land in the United States.

Ben, who has broken ribs and Ashley, who suffers a terrible leg fracture, along with the pilot's dog, are faced with an incredibly harrowing battle to survive. Fortunately, Ben is a medical professional and avid climber (and in a lucky break, has his gear from a climb earlier in the week). With little hope for rescue, he must nurse Ashley back to health and figure out how they are going to get off the mountain, where the temperature hovers in the teens. Meanwhile, Ashley soon realizes that the very private Ben has some serious emotional wounds to heal as well. He explains to Ashley that he is separated from his beloved wife, but in a long standing tradition, he faithfully records messages for her on his voice recorder reflecting on their love affair. As Ashley eavesdrops on Ben's tender words to his estranged wife she comes to fear that when it comes to her own love story, she's just settling. And what's more: she begins to realize that the man she is really attracted to, the man she may love, is Ben.

As the days on the mountains become weeks, their survival become increasingly perilous. How will they make it out of the wilderness and if they do, how will this experience change them forever?

Both a tender and page-turning read, The Mountain Between Us will reaffirm your belief in the power of love to sustain us.

I just picked this up today and am only a few pages in but am already questioning the casting as Ashley is described as a twenty something who looks similar to Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted but they cast Kate Winslet? I mean I adore her but like that seems like a pretty big difference from how this character was written.

They've changed the casting a few times. I love Kate Winslet and I think she's too strong of an actress to play this part, personally.

Im about to start this book. I am just wondering where everyone is at in the book? If im too late to begin reading?

I'm only on page 74.

I read it a couple years ago and it's a quick read. You can probably finish it in two days.

OK good. My goal is to have it finished by this weekend. When will we start discussing?

Started this last night.

You can start talking about it any time you'd like! :)

Almost done. Will probably finish tonight. I'm curious to see what everyone thinks! Overall I'm liking it but there are definitely parts I'm rolling my eyes at.

I've been kind of lagging through this and I'm around the half way point. I can't think of a way that this will end that will be satisfying to be honest.

Did cannibalism just happen in the romance novel?

You see cannibalism everywhere, Kelly.

If you're in a plane crash and there's a dead pilot and someone is like where did you get the meat and they keep telling you don't worry about it I don't think cannibalism is a big stretch.

I rolled my eyes at more than a few points. I HATED how long it took me to figure out the twist. My mom read it and she figured it out before me.

Is the twist that they're not really separated but she died from pregnancy complications and he brings the flowers to where their ashes are spread and everything because that's kind of what I'm thinking is right now (at like 70% done) because the whole time it sounds like he's talking to / about a dead person in the italicized part and the author looks like Nicholas Sparks so I'm assuming he would tbh.

These aren't spoilers that was speculation. I put down the book to play Alien Isolation instead because reasons.

Lmao. He's basically the Christian version of Nicholas Sparks. I didn't even know he was a Christian author until after I finished it.

Isn't Nicholas Sparks the Christian version of Nicholas Sparks?

Nicholas Sparks is his own genre. If somebody doesn't die from cancer or a freak accident, it's not Sparks

So instead of sleeping I just powered through the rest of this and lol omg fuck this stupid book. I'm judging Kate Winslet and Idris Elba.

Hahaha. That was my feeling by the end of the book too.

Juliana wrote: "Lmao. He's basically the Christian version of Nicholas Sparks. I didn't even know he was a Christian author until after I finished it."

I KNEW it! lmao I didn't want to say it but when Kelly posted his pic on ONTD I thought "he looks like he could be a Duggar".

I feel like all of the parts I didn't like about the book kind of overwhelmed the parts I did like. I ended up giving it 3 stars but that was probably generous.

I finally finished the book last night. I can honestly say, I was completely able to figure it out before the end of the book. I am always ruining movies/books for myself because I am "predicting" what will happen. I actually had a hunch fairly quickly but was not completely sure until he was explaining his pregnant wife's decision.

Here is why I absolutely loved and hated this book at the same time. I absolutely loved how the book was focused on survival and how the format of the book was written. If the movie was done right they would have flashbacks throughout the entire film {which I love}. However, I was not crazy about how he was a Dr. who enjoyed hiking because then you knew they were going to survive even if they had near death experiences, which makes the book less suspenseful and more predictable. I thought the love attraction was awkward to say the least. She blurts out randomly if "he is attracted to her" and yet their are no leading indications. The author does in the beginning focus on him being interested in her at the airport, but as far as the love connection, it lacked. I understand how they grew to love each other and rely on each other through their 28 day (I cannot remember the exact amount of days) stay at the mountain, but I felt like their could have been more written in the book to make me feel it.

As for Nicholas Sparks books, I LOVE his stories, but I stopped reading them because they were predictable and his books have a pattern. Someone dies... someones torn... they fall in love... the end. :-)

Any thoughts?