Review of Man Mission
Posted: 04 Feb 2023, 07:45
[Following is a volunteer review of "Man Mission" by Eytan Uliel.]
Man Mission: Four Men, Fifteen Years, One Epic Journey by Eytan Uliel, a story begin with a youth's dream of travelling to new places, tasting delicious food, and engaging in activities like biking, hiking, and kayaking to avoid feeling bad about eating. Until the dream became a reality, it was carried out by four friends: Sam, Daniel, Alec, and the fourth friend, the protagonist, through whom we listened to their stories about trips to many places with different cultures, such as South Korea, Japan, Fiji, and many others. Journeys spanning fifteen years full of adventure, self-discovery, challenges, and pushing their limits—that's what they called it "Man Mission."
Here we do not only see a group of friends traveling, but we witness the development of their personalities from the stages of youth and dreams to the stage of maturity and commitment to work, marriage, founding families, having children and facing life challenges of a different kind. Through these trips, the author tried to show us how men accept the stage of maturity. You feel what they are going through in terms of their sense of a partial loss of their freedom, despite the difference in severity of this between them. What they go through in their daily lives and with their families is shown in glimpses that the writer mixed in between those trips, so you find yourself hearing their conversations about buying a house, preparing for a wedding, and changing diapers while at the same time they are planning trips or sitting on the banks of a river. The author has been creative in narrating the events, mixing all these elements.The trips themselves are brilliantly described, including the cities and countries they visited —Thailand, Peru, Taiwan, and many others— their fusion with different cultures, and how they applied the set of rules they developed over the course of those trips. "Man Mission Rules" pushed their limits to the fullest extent they could bear, as the protagonist of the novel stated that it brought out things in him that he never knew he had.
The use of the protagonist, the friend, as a narrator was a point of creativity from the author because he made it look like conversations between friends, as if you were listening to your good friend, who tells you everything that happens with him without omitting any detail, and this makes you more attentive, as in his description of the roads they went through while cycling in Japan or when he was revealing his fears about home loans and preparing for marriage. This commitment to these trips and their rules, I felt, turned from just achieving a dream to escaping from the obligations and daily routine crises in the lives of adults in search of some freedom that they had in their youth. As a woman, I may not feel much pity for them, but I can understand the one's desire to escape and feel again his freedom, even for a short period, while respecting his duties towards his family.
All these feelings and fluctuations that we see through this story add to its characteristic of realism. I have seen normal men like the ones we see every day change with time, mature, suffer, travel, try to build a life, and experience new things. Even the journeys they took were not as easy as you can imagine, as they faced many challenges and injuries as well. Therefore, I did not find anything negative here that I could say. I really enjoyed reading the book and the parts in which the writer showed the nature of relationships and how many obstacles are faced along the way. Some people can pass peacefully while the road becomes difficult for others, and it takes time to mend their lives. Maybe I wished that the author had given us a name for the protagonist, but it didn't bother me. I enjoyed the side statistics after each trip as they summarised the trip in points.
For these reasons, I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. It was fun, full of adventure, with sometimes even humour added by the protagonist, wrapped in sarcasm, criticism, or even admiration in his narration, and it was well edited. As I understood the "man mission" concept, it is what all women and men are looking for at some point in our lives, even if the method differs due to the difference in our natures. In the end, we are all humans, and we need an outlet and some peace of mind from the pressure of our daily lives and our obligations. I was hoping to recommend reading it to everyone, but because of the profanity, I recommend it to adult readers, whether men or women, and to everyone who loves travel, trips, and new places.
******
Man Mission
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
Man Mission: Four Men, Fifteen Years, One Epic Journey by Eytan Uliel, a story begin with a youth's dream of travelling to new places, tasting delicious food, and engaging in activities like biking, hiking, and kayaking to avoid feeling bad about eating. Until the dream became a reality, it was carried out by four friends: Sam, Daniel, Alec, and the fourth friend, the protagonist, through whom we listened to their stories about trips to many places with different cultures, such as South Korea, Japan, Fiji, and many others. Journeys spanning fifteen years full of adventure, self-discovery, challenges, and pushing their limits—that's what they called it "Man Mission."
Here we do not only see a group of friends traveling, but we witness the development of their personalities from the stages of youth and dreams to the stage of maturity and commitment to work, marriage, founding families, having children and facing life challenges of a different kind. Through these trips, the author tried to show us how men accept the stage of maturity. You feel what they are going through in terms of their sense of a partial loss of their freedom, despite the difference in severity of this between them. What they go through in their daily lives and with their families is shown in glimpses that the writer mixed in between those trips, so you find yourself hearing their conversations about buying a house, preparing for a wedding, and changing diapers while at the same time they are planning trips or sitting on the banks of a river. The author has been creative in narrating the events, mixing all these elements.The trips themselves are brilliantly described, including the cities and countries they visited —Thailand, Peru, Taiwan, and many others— their fusion with different cultures, and how they applied the set of rules they developed over the course of those trips. "Man Mission Rules" pushed their limits to the fullest extent they could bear, as the protagonist of the novel stated that it brought out things in him that he never knew he had.
The use of the protagonist, the friend, as a narrator was a point of creativity from the author because he made it look like conversations between friends, as if you were listening to your good friend, who tells you everything that happens with him without omitting any detail, and this makes you more attentive, as in his description of the roads they went through while cycling in Japan or when he was revealing his fears about home loans and preparing for marriage. This commitment to these trips and their rules, I felt, turned from just achieving a dream to escaping from the obligations and daily routine crises in the lives of adults in search of some freedom that they had in their youth. As a woman, I may not feel much pity for them, but I can understand the one's desire to escape and feel again his freedom, even for a short period, while respecting his duties towards his family.
All these feelings and fluctuations that we see through this story add to its characteristic of realism. I have seen normal men like the ones we see every day change with time, mature, suffer, travel, try to build a life, and experience new things. Even the journeys they took were not as easy as you can imagine, as they faced many challenges and injuries as well. Therefore, I did not find anything negative here that I could say. I really enjoyed reading the book and the parts in which the writer showed the nature of relationships and how many obstacles are faced along the way. Some people can pass peacefully while the road becomes difficult for others, and it takes time to mend their lives. Maybe I wished that the author had given us a name for the protagonist, but it didn't bother me. I enjoyed the side statistics after each trip as they summarised the trip in points.
For these reasons, I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. It was fun, full of adventure, with sometimes even humour added by the protagonist, wrapped in sarcasm, criticism, or even admiration in his narration, and it was well edited. As I understood the "man mission" concept, it is what all women and men are looking for at some point in our lives, even if the method differs due to the difference in our natures. In the end, we are all humans, and we need an outlet and some peace of mind from the pressure of our daily lives and our obligations. I was hoping to recommend reading it to everyone, but because of the profanity, I recommend it to adult readers, whether men or women, and to everyone who loves travel, trips, and new places.
******
Man Mission
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
