I just finished Crazy for the Storm, A Memoir of Survival by Norman Ollestad. I liked it (read it in 24 hours!). It is part memoir, part adventure/thriller, and part tribute to his father. He parallels the story of the events after the crash with the events leading up to the crash in alternating chapters. It felt a little disjointed at first but I easily adapted to the style after a few chapters.

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An okay read. I skipped through a lot of young Ollestad's life - it got repetitive and I stayed annoyed with Ollestad Sr. to say the least. The survival story was quite good and I enjoyed this part of the book.
To sum it up, I didn't think it lived up to its rave reviews.

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This is one of my favorite survival stories of all time. It covers several of the major important survival genres: Survival in the mountain wilderness, survival in a plane crash, survival in a storm, survival in the ocean, surviving as an American in Mexico, surviving a sordid childhood, mix in some daddy issues and this this is really fascinating read.

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Really loved this book - both for the adventure and survival aspects and for the coming of age story. Ollestad, Jr. is the son of an adventurous and unusually enthusiastic father. Some would call Sr. a thrill-seeker. He'd raised the author on wild trips, high impact sports, constant physical and mental challenge, but all tempered with a certain laid-back attitude to conflict. In reading, one comes to suspect that their personalities were quite different yet each learned to respect the others' limitations and perspective.

The book alternates between snapshots and stories from childhood and the tale of surviving a plane crash which kills pilot, father and father's girlfriend. Usually this style seems disjointed, but it made perfect sense when you consider the point of the book is how the author's childhood gave him the strength of character and the physical ability to hike down a mountain from elevation of about 8500 feet in deep snow and tough terrain. There are lots of details of ski slopes, surfing, and traveling, along with a look at the hippy-dippy lifestyle of the 70s on Topango Beach.

I literally could not put the book down. It finished with a nice wrap-up of how our author is now raising his own son. It felt very satisfying to see the thread of adventure still there, but tempered by experience.

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