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The title is metaphorical. I wonder if someone could actually swallow a sword. Looking forward to read the book.

Anytime I see "based on a true story", I take it with a grain of salt. I assume that the overall themes and stories of the books are true, but the details are probably improvised. Real life doesn't always have riveting dialogue or perfectly wrapped up story lines. I don't mind if authors make some minor adjustments to make a smoother story. However, the core of the stories should be true. If not, the author is just a fraud.

I haven't read the book, but I do believe that sometimes real life can be stranger than fiction. After all don't we always say "Stranger things have happened." When we see something strange happening right in front of us.

That's more of a real life stranger than a fiction. All in all I enjoyed reading it.

I have read many memoirs and through them I have learned that reality can seem a lot stranger than fiction. People's lives are complex and complicated, people have unique skills and live unique lives. I don't have trouble finding memoirs to be real anymore because I have read many different ones. Of course there is always a chance something is untrue but it is more unlikely than it being real I think.

Not necessarily. There’s billions of people on the earth...not everyone has typical 9-5 jobs. It’s those that don’t that get labeled and judged.

I have found that the term "based on true events" differs greatly from the phrase "based on a true story" in many ways. Yes, many of the occurrences in the book may have loosely been related to reality. Most of them were not extremely unbelievable in any way.

People often dramatize and romanticize events that have happened in their lives and when they write decide to write their stories they may edit events to suit themselves. I am always skeptical when books and movies say based on true events because that means a few sprinkled truths but with a lot of dramatization. I have only read the review of this book so I will reserve my judgment.

There are certainly some extraordinary events in the book and Duke's life story is not typical. This might really prove that real life is stranger than fiction.

I, for one, never questioned the author's credibility. To me, the entire account seemed too honest and heartfelt to be false. I guess there are people like this, for whom every second counts, every minute feels like an adventure. Probably we don’t get to know them always. Kudos to Robinson that he shed light on a different track of life.

It's strange and hard to believe these things happened in real life. But life experiences differ from one another and maybe this is the reality of some person living somewhere on this Earth. Maybe this is the norm for some people and they might feel our lives are abnormal. So, I just think them as experiences of some person living far away.

It was definitely hard to believe that this book was based entirely on reality. Reading a story that is completely different than my own reality makes it seem like more like fiction!

This book proved that real life can be a roller-coaster ride. It depends on each person. Fiction is definitely stranger as it is a huge ocean of infinite possibilities.

I think some of the content of this book could be based on true life story. I have seen true videos of people swallowing sword that was the most strange part of this book to me.

From the prologue the author attached to this book, I knew that this book was a true account of someone's life