I too felt that the writing was lacking and it took me forever to get through the first 150 pages. But I was interested in his mission and had to find out how he went from one school to many in such a turbulent part of the world, so I kept on going. And in the end I loved it. This man did such an amazing thing. It really changed the way I think about things in that area of the world and it makes you want to dig deeper and help a little bit. It makes you want Mr. Mortensen to be able to talk to our leaders and help them understand what really needs to be done. I do feel that Mr Relin's writing was poor, I wish it was written by Jon Krakauer, but at least his story was told.