Alone in Antarctica


Non-Fiction - Memoir
250 Pages
Reviewed on 10/16/2013
Buy on Amazon

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Alone in Antarctica is Felicity Aston's memoir of her solo trip across Antarctica. The story begins at the beginning: her initial conditioning movements as she tows auto tires across the sands of a local beach to prepare for the towing of the sledges that will carry her goods. Aston shares all the details and arrangements that an expedition to Antarctica requires and discusses the thought processes that went into her choice of route. The reader gets to feel her frustration at the delays due to weather and her fears that those delays are taking vital chunks out of her allotted time during the short Antarctic summer. When Aston is finally out there on the ice watching the plane disappear into the distance, the jubilation and panic she feels is expressed clearly and plainly. As she travels through storms, wind, and white-out conditions, the reader shares each experience and emotion Aston feels.

Felicity Aston's memoir, Alone in Antarctica, is more gripping than many adventure tales and not only because it is a true story. Aston is brutally honest in her account of this epic adventure. We see her filled with self-doubt, weeping in her tent, and feel almost a bit embarrassed at being present during these private moments. What will thrill armchair adventurers and those of us who've harbored dreams of polar exploration and arctic voyages is Aston's descriptions of the environment she encounters, the forbidding peaks, the pale blue sastrugi seeming to be eyes peering out at her in the distance, the intensity of winds that make each step a struggle. Alone in Antarctica brings all the intensity of this remarkable achievement to life with simple and brutal honesty, and I'm thrilled to have read it.