for providing my eARC

I feel bad about giving a bad rating but here it goes.
Tate and Rose are two teenage best friends. They both enjoy hiking and will embark on the ultimate adventure: climbing Mount Everest.
Along the road, Rose and Tate will need to face their feelings for each other and their respective familial drama.
While reading the blurb, "Above all else" seemed to have great potential as YA/romantic novel, and it was in some parts, but my general impression was boredom and dissociation.
The story was slow-paced and all over the place. The characters were plain and as a result, I couldn't connect with any of them.
my 2,5 stars are for the idea of the story and the amazing book cover.

Great cover that sums up the book real nice: huge mountain and two people growing closing together trying to get to the top of Mt Everest. It shows that the writer did her research as the climbing descriptions feel very realistic most of the times as do the vivid descriptions of the scenery.
I liked the friendship between the two mains..I am not sure how I feel about it going further than that, it don't think it was a necessary development in this book. Sometimes a romance can enhance the adventure part but in this case I think their platonic relationship was really strong and there was no need to all of a sudden push it into a romantic one. It didn't fit the flow of the book in my opinion.

Lord, that was a rush! Everest, the peak of peaks. A story of two best friends and their journey to bag the big one. Except, things get a little complicated along the way.
I was on the edge of my seat. So much happened, and I was here for it! There was fun and laughter, shock and terror, anger and self righteousness, love and discovery, and more than anything, there was a feeling of family and togetherness. Sadly, likely all great stories, there was loss. And when I tell you I ugly cried, I mean, even my husband couldn’t look at me!! I was a mess for a good 30 minutes. I needed to put the kindle down and walk about to get my head together. That right there is a sign of a well written story. If you can evoke such deep emotions from someone with just words in a page, you’ve got something special.
I fell madly in love with all of the characters, but of course Tate and Rose above all others. I loved their growth throughout the story, as individuals and as a long standing RoseandTate BFF pair. They gave me the butterflies I look for in characters.
The Everest details were incredible. I couldn’t get enough of the facts just pouring from the pages. So much about the culture of the people who live in the towns around the base of Everest in Nepal. So much to learn about the way these amazingly strong people put their lives on the line each year so that climbers from all over the world can tag the tallest mountain in the world. The number of people it takes to make an attempt at the peak, and the work that goes into all of the requirements behind the scenes. There’s nothing better than a work of fiction that peppers you with facts.
At the end of the day, I give this one 4.5 stars. It’s an excellent read, and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes fact with their fiction.
I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

While the beginning was a slow start and felt very staged at certain moments, I was sucked into the story from the halfway point through the last page. Rose and Tate’s friendship, or more than friendship, felt so authentic.

The author did a fantastic job of replicating the culture of Mount Everest climbers, even the horrible, gory details that no one likes to talk about. There’s a level of emotional intensity as Rose and Tate get higher up the mountain that stuck with me for a few days after I finished reading.

I’d absolutely recommend this book to a reader who seeks a good adventure.

DNF.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity, but sadly this book wasn't for me and I wasn't able to get into the story so decided to not finish it.

Unfortunately, I had to put this down, however I am extremely grateful for the opportunity. Thank you, Netgalley!

Unfortunately, I lost this copy and can't read it. I'll rate it high due to that I feel like this can be a new favorite of mine.

Not my cup of tea. I was having expectations, but at rhe end the book was not my book. The author has nice style.

I absolutely love the idea of this book, but I wasn't absolutely in love with the execution.
There were some pacing issues that caused me to put down this book a lot and sadly I couldn't focus on the story all the time. So I'm a bit sad about that - as I already mentioned I wanted so desperately to love this book.
Regardless, I think this book is something interesting and fresh on the YA scene and I would recommend it if a person finds the synopsis interesting, they probably won't regret reading this book.

There needs to be more hiking/climbing/outdoor fiction for us readers! I loved the intensity of this young adult novel and well as the description of the their journey. It really made me feel like I was right there in Nepal with them. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher!

Rose and Tate are two mountain climbing enthusiasts who have recently graduated high school and are now looking forward to having their biggest dream come to life--climbing and reaching the summit of Mount Everest for which they have trained for years. Accompanied by Tate's father and a few other members who make up the climbing party, Tate and Rose initially show all the right amount of excitement but as they get nearer to the task, self-doubt and tension arise and it becomes obvious that both Tate and Rose are not confident about the climb.

I haven't read much fiction related to mountain climbing expeditions although I have watched quite a few movies. To me the author seems to have done her research well on the subject but I think people who are into rock/ mountain climbing and are aware of the minute details related to it will be better able to tell.

My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher Charlesbridge and the author Dana Alison Levy for the e-Arc of the book.

The book was published on 13th October 2020.

Rating:⭐⭐⭐💫

It was a good book, just did not hold my interest. I enjoyed it very much at some parts, but the majority of the book I felt like I was just lost.

I was drawn to this book because I am a huge fan of Hatchet and similar stories, and am a High School Librarian. However, I have to admit it just didn't hold my interest. I tried several times but didn't end up finishing the book. Some of the choices that were made by the main characters just didn't seem realistic to me, which caused me to lose interest.

The description for this book made me believe that this book would be right up my alley; however, this book fell flat for me. The pacing was definitely off, as it felt very rushed. Due to the rush factor, I felt like the characters were not well-developed and the relationship was very sudden and didn't quite make sense. Also, I would definitely categorize this as more of a YA book with a few TW's due to the topic.

Just not for me unfortunately. It wasn’t bad per say, but not my style. The “romance “ came from nowhere and the main characters were boring—one was always mad and the other always worried, it didn’t seem like that had much personality beyond that. I dnfed it.

I’m not totally counting it out—I think some people might really enjoy this book. It has a unique idea.

This book was a very different experience to what I’m used to reading, prior to this I had never read about mountain climbing or how intense the entire experience. The book totally delivered and it made me experience stuff along the two characters. I enjoyed the book overall but I kinda wish we had gotten a little more about Tate and Rose's story rather than focusing wholly on the adventure.

Unfortunately for me, this was a pretty basic YA contemporary. I was hoping that with the Everest aspect of the story this book would be able to break out of that mold a little more, but unfortunately, it wasn’t able to do that for me. I really appreciated the obvious research and effort the author put into the climbing aspect of this book, so that’s a definite plus. Overall I would say this is a fine book. I don’t think I’d ever feel the need to re-read it, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

We follow Rose and Tate as they attempt to climb Mount Everest, while they do so, they have to deal with many different obstacles that come their way.

So I really enjoyed this book, it was a really quick read, it only took less than 2 days to read. It overall is a really fun read but in saying that we deal with a few tough topics.

I really enjoy Rose and Tate as characters, the overall arc of this story is really good. I love Roses determination even after things she didn’t want to happen happens. Tate on the other hand is dealing with things he didn’t realize he had to deal with which is something I loved reading about.

It seems like a lot of research went into this book I honestly learned a lot about Mount Everest from this book, it was a thrill reading about the adventure of climbing the mountain, to the point that it felt like you were there with the characters.

I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would.

It is hard to come by young adult books in the “action and adventure” category so I was thrilled when I came across Above All Else. My husband is fascinated by mountaineering and escepcially Moubt Everest, so over the years I have read many non-fiction books in the topic. This story focuses on two best friends, Tate and Rose, who at the age of 18 are climbing Mount Everest, something they have been preparing for their whole lives. The story is fairly focused on the adventure and survival of climbing Mount Everest and less in the relationship between Rose and Tate, which wasn’t exactly what I expected. I do feel that this book does portray the drive of those who dream of climbing Everest. Would recommend for anyone looking for a YA book in the area of survival and adventure, was an interesting change from some of my usual reading,
Thank you to the publisher and Netgslley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

I don’t know!!! I requested this originally because I’m an avid rock climber, but the story was a pretty run of the mill hetero young adult where the outcome was heartwarming but predictable.