I enjoyed this quite a bit. Roll's voice was considerably more humble than similar ultra-endurance competitors-turned-authors I've read (see Dean Karnazes and Pam Reed), which made it much easier to read. I was especially fascinated by his account of the Epic5, where he and a friend completed five iron-distance tris on five different Hawaiian islands in under a week. Yikes.

A few negatives: For some reason, certain memoir authors seem to feel the need to describe things in excruciating detail, which I find pulls me out of the story, as well as feel weird about knowing the real name of a kid who picked on you in elementary school, kwim? This was especially prevalent in the beginning chapters of the book. I also thought the chapter about his whole foods vegan diet, which Roll calls PlantPower, read a bit like an infomercial and interrupted the flow of the narrative -- as do a few other references to particular products that are sprinkled throughout the book and point you to the appendices for more info. I think it would have worked better to put a large portion of that chapter into the appendix that deals with PlantPower (also, a whole foods vegan diet isn't a novel idea that warrants its own new name, IMO).

Overall, though, it was a very interesting book.


*I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.