4 out of 4 stars
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I had the pleasure of reading Man Mission written by Eytan Uliel. While I was expecting the normal "manly blurb" of their exploits ad nauseum, it was a very pleasant surprise to find it a very insightful book, filled with humour, adventure, drama and life lessons that everyone can heed. It is a great pleasure to rate it a very definite 4 out of 4 stars .
Man Mission follows four friends on their collective and individual journeys through life, the start of their careers, building homes and families and sharing their experiences with all the pitfalls and peaks. It encompasses 15 years of annual missions which draws the four closer to one another. During the course of the missions, they find themselves and redefine what manliness means to each of them. The annual missions entail regrouping, injuries, pushing their limits, friendly and comedic humiliation at the hands of friends, strengthening bonds and discovering answers to some of the questions that they all have about themselves, each other and life in general.
Being my first review, I was slightly nervous about reading a book that I thought would be out of my comfort zone, but it was a book that made me think and think deeply. There were times that I actually didn’t read for a couple of days, just to absorb what I had read, to make adjustments within myself to better understand what men in general go through. It’s a brilliantly written book, with more than enough humour to make me giggle out loud, and I shared many a part with my partner. The perspective given from the unnamed narrator made it seem very much a memoir instead of an excellent piece of fiction which gave me great pleasure to read.
While I usually don’t enjoy a novel written with crisscrossing timelines, the format of this book made it refreshing, pertinent and a joy to read. Well thought out, great expression of thoughts and emotions and gave me brilliant insight into the needs of the men in my life. As to any negative points, the spelling of certain words irked me, but purely because I am used to British English which is not used in this book. Otherwise it came across as very well edited.
The limited amount of swear words used by the author might be off-putting to some people, but I found it to be true expressions at the specific moment in time and not just using the words because he could. I surmise that most people will enjoy this book, but especially those that enjoy reading adventure novels and those that enjoy the self-help genre.
A truly enjoyable book and I look forward to reading more of Eytan Uliel's work.
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Man Mission
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