I recently read The Hike by Lucy Clarke. It’s a survival thriller set in the Norwegian wilderness and I really liked it so lets talk about why!

What is The Hike about?

The Hike follows 4 women – Maggie, Liz, Helena and Joni – who have been friends since they met on their first day of secondary school. Every year they go on holiday together, and this year they’re going on an adventure of a lifetime: hiking in the Norwegian wilderness. 

It’s beautiful out there but none of them have ever been hiking before, they’re not preparared and when they start to hear stories of a missing girl and they decide to ignore weather warnings… everything starts to go wrong.

What did I like about it?

I love a good book about female friendship and while this was a thriller about survival, it was also a book about the complicated friendships of 4 adult women. They each have their own problems:

Maggie has left her daughter with her ex for the first time ever. 

Liz is trialling a separation from her husband but keeping it a secret from all of her friends.

Helena finds herself unexpectedly pregnant despite not ever wanting children.

Joni is a world-famous singer who has just left in the middle of a tour.

The group haven’t spent a lot of time together as a full group lately due to Joni’s touring commitments and Maggie and Liz’s family commitments so as this is the first time they’ve hung out all together in a while, tensions are high and secrets start coming out. And you know what? I’m not surprised. I can imagine any relationship would start to turn sour once they’re put through what these characters go through in this book, especially with all of the issues these characters already had. 

I enjoyed all of the characters overall. They were all flawed and had their problems and that’s what made them so good to me. However, they could be a little dumb and annoying sometimes. Why are we not all checking weather warnings and listening when locals tell us that we should turn back because of the weather? I just can’t imagine going anywhere so dangerous and not planning everything properly. They were also just not very prepared at all. Liz planned the trip and was the one that really wanted to go on this trip and it seems like she was the only one that did any research. She was also the only one that had a map! Maggie did absolutely no preparation for the trip and was just so unfit and this literally led to her getting separated from the group at one point (and, of course, she didn’t have a map so couldn’t figure out where she was!). Joni just showed up after being on tour and binging drugs and alcohol. The characters did, however, feel real and that’s why I was never too mad at them even when they were making silly decisions.

I loved the setting of this book. There’s nothing that I love more in a thriller than an isolated setting and this one was more dangerous than most. It was very atmospheric and you really felt the panic when everything started to go wrong for these characters. I loved the fact that the setting was both so beautiful and so dangerous!

There was one other perspective from a man that worked in the lodge they stayed at before they left for their hike. I enjoyed this perspective because it kind of kept you guessing at what was going to happen since you’re not quite sure from when his perspective is from so the things he was saying could’ve been about anyone.

The beginning of the novel was a little bit slow (I’d say about the first 20%) but I feel like this was completely necessary to set up these friendships. The book wouldn’t have been the same without the complicated relationships these women have with each other and we needed the set up to find out who these characters are and all of their relationships with each other. A slow start is the sacrifice this book has to take in order to make the rest of the book worth it! Once they actually get started hiking it picks up and doesn’t really slow down until the end. 

I never really guess where thrillers are going and it was true for this one (I feel like I’d be better if I actually read more thrillers which I always say I’m going to do!). I was quite shocked at the end but it wasn’t an ending that didn’t make any sense. 

What didn’t I like?

I feel like there were just too many perspectives and none of the voices were very distinct. I was listening to the audiobook as well as reading and even that didn’t help. Occasionally, I was forgetting which characters perspective I was currently reading from. It wasn’t the biggest deal in the world but it happened more than once.

I noticed that the author overused a lot of phrases and it feels like something that should’ve been caught in editing. I think I found it especially annoying because I was also listening to the audiobook and I’m not sure I would’ve noticed so much if I was just reading it with my eyes. 

Final Thoughts

This was an enjoyable book that I read in pretty much one sitting. After I got past the first 20% it was action-packed and easy to read. I gave this book a 3.5 rating (rounded up to 4 on goodreads) and it definitely made me interested in reading more Lucy Clarke books! I’ve heard a lot about The Castaway so I’m thinking maybe that one will be the next book that I take a look at from this author!

Can I also say, I’ve never had the urge to go hiking in the wilderness and this book just confirmed every horrible fear I had about it.