Customer Reviews:
 Very touching August 15, 2008
I listened to the audiobook. It's an interesting story. If you're a fan of the Hamster, you'll love hearing him read this.
 Great Story April 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It is a rare thing in today's world that you find a true gentleman adventurer. His story is a great read and yet still very touching. The nice guy you see on Top Gear doesn't seem to be an act, he really is a genuinely nice guy with a beautiful family.
 On the Edge April 10, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I bought this book based on the rave reviews it had received upon release in Britain and expected, as a fellow reviewer here noted, an autobiography. Which it is, but not in the 'traditional sense', if one can say that.
It describes Hammonds childhood adventures dreaming about being Evil Knivel and doing stunts on his bicycle, but it mostly focuses on the great crash that he had in "The Vampire", a rocketpropelled, 10.000 horsepower dragster and the subsequent hospitalisation and recovery.
It was co-written by Hammond and his wife Mindy (seeing that there were a couple of black spots in his memory after the accident), which gives the volume a different aspect from normal biographies, which, in my opinion at least, is a good thing in the sense, that we get both sides of the story. Not something often available in auto biogs.
It does however also shift focus away from the biography part to the accident part, which, granted, is the most interesting part, obviously, but not what the book 'advertises' (if one can use such a silly and completely stupid word in this connection). That is, however, a tiny problem, and indeed a problem that is mine entirely.
A true problem though, in my opinion, is the style of writing. I know, that this is one of the things that has won this book such good reviews, but in my opinion it is not a bonus, but a subtraction. The writing style is more suitable for romantic novels, not autobiographies. Especially the portions written by Mindy Hammond are staccato to the point of distraction. Far too many short sentences filled with too many emotional words (I know she describes her at the time quite wild emotions, and that this is necessary, but too much of a thing is seldom good. I think it could have been frased better). It does really seem to my eye to be a style of writing more suited to romantic fiction than biogs. And this bothers me. It subtracts rather than adds.
There are also a couple of factual things, that seem at odds with other accounts (not of the hospital or the crash, but facts in the perifery of things). These may of course be the truth, and the other accounts false. Moreover it does at times simply feels to short. Not enough pages. Especially of the therapy afterwards. I think that maybe the book was written a bit too soon. If they'd waited another year or so they'd have a lot better perspective on things. Although it is a very honest and candid account of things, I think there are many things, especially in the aftermath, that are left unsaid. Also it would've been nice with an account of how Hammond was/is coping with returning to Top Gear. A thing he has talked about recently in interviews in Britain.
All in all, it's not a bad book, just not all that I expected it to be.
How love really can conquer all. October 7, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I was expecting an auto-biography; instead, I found a compelling account of suffering a brain injury, recovering from that injury, and - most movingly of all - living with and loving someone with a brain injury. The searing honesty, and the often black humour, shown by both Richard and Mindy Hammond shows that theirs is a marriage that can survive anything life throws at it. This book ultimately is about hope, and it certainly puts my little gripes about life into perspective. A great read.
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