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Spoilers Beyond This Point

“Vilhelm’s warning crept up, dark and insidious. That feeling of unease, of not being alone, that isn’t immediately explicable.”

The Hike, Lucy Clarke

This book did a fantastic job of creating the feeling of true isolation. In the beginning, each of the 4 main characters is struggling to find enthusiasm for their trip. Liz planned the trip to coincide with a trial separation from her husband. Maggie is terrified about letting her daughter stay with her dad, Maggie’s ex-husband. Helena spends the morning of the trip putting off taking a pregnancy test and grieving her recently deceased mother. Joni has been touring around Europe with her band, abusing herself in multiple ways, to the point of considering suicide. Instead of sharing these struggles with each other and finding support, each woman is determined to soldier on alone. 

Once the group arrives at the lodge in Norway, the secrets begin to force their way out. There’s a blissful point about a third of the way through where the friend group seems to have come back into alignment as the women work together to conquer the wilderness.

“Gradually, the dizzying sensation faded, along with the light, until the four of them were crawling in the dark, knees raw, palms grazed, just the sound of wind and breath and earth.”

The Hike, Lucy Clarke

Unfortunately, that blissful point is just a moment’s rest as the turmoil begins to shift from internal to external. As the quad begin the 4 day hike up the mountain, things go from manageable to “we’re dying on this mountain” real quick. The first day, the group has some creepy encounters with some of the locals, who seem to appear out of thin air. The second day, their determination is dwindling, and they make the choice to turn back a day early, avoiding the actual mountain climb. This decision leads to all of their belongings being swept away in a thunderstorm-caused-mudslide while the group shelters in a cave off the shore.  

“‘Why is there a bag of cocaine in this cave?’ Helena whispered, glancing around, alarmed.”

The Hike, Lucy Clarke

Truthfully, I thought this is where the book would lose me. There’s dozens of lobster pots in this cave, all filled with cocaine. There’s also a bracelet that belongs to a woman who “disappeared” from the mountain a year ago, Karin. The group quickly puts together that they should not be anywhere near the illegally smuggled drugs, and start climbing the mountain with no gear. And I surprised myself by still being fully invested. The group successfully climbs the mountainside, crosses the summit, and is able to find a designated shelter to spend the night. Unfortunately, this is where everything just kind of explodes into bizarre plot points. 

The first twist is the fact that Joni slept with Liz’s husband, which definitely led to the trial separation Liz is now facing. The second twist is that the group has the wrong perception about each of the local men they’ve met. The ones that seemed menacing and murdery are actually good and decent, and the ones who seemed odd but harmless are actually the drug kingpins who are definitely murderers. The third twist is that the drug dealers are the ones who killed Karin, the woman who went missing the year before. Three really big twists, all within 20 pages. But I was still with it. I was reading a popcorn thriller, so I had to expect a couple jumps, right?

“Bleeding and battered, faces streaked with salt and blood and earth, they clung together. Three where there should have been four.”

The Hike, Lucy Clarke

Wrong. The final twist is that Joni feels so guilty about sleeping with Liz’s husband and so exhausted by the series of bad decisions she’s made that she throws herself off the mountain while grabbing the main drug dealer. They both die from the fall, and the characters treat it like a magical sacrifice. This ending really bugged me, especially because the group dynamic immediately switches to a time jump with a “we’re here to heal together forever” mentality, while the whole book has been about the isolated struggles of each woman. For me to accept that Joni’s suicide was necessary to the plot, I would’ve needed more from each of the other 3 characters, not just a walk on the beach.

But! The ending did not ruin the book for me at all. Overall, it was a blast to read. It’s an adventure book more than any other category and kept me fully invested to the end. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a fun and thrilling read.