The Hidden Pull

Adventure Tales of Forbidden Harvests, Uneasy Money, and Learning to Tie My Shoes

By: Theo Polo

Narrated by: Theo Polo

Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Suffocating from boredom and bureaucracy in a low-level corporate job, he was starved for adventure. By fate or happenstance, a hidden door led him into a secret underground room the likes of which he had never imagined possible.

Surrounded by cascading waterfalls of reflected light and oddly sentient plant beings, he knew he'd found his new obsession. There was just one problem: it was all against the law. What follows is a decade-long coming of age journey in an obscure and forbidden industry: sometimes breathtaking, at times heartbreaking, occasionally profitable, and always with the mandatory sense of impending legal doom.

As he struggles to support his medical patients, haggle prices with shady types and barter with loan sharks—all the while flying under the radar—he is forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: this wasn’t actually what he wanted to do with his life, after all. Ultimately over a hundred grand in debt, he’d need to fight to salvage friendships, take foolish risks just to keep the lights on, and wrestle with doubts and impostor syndrome to finally discover the real reasons behind this bizarre career choice.

As with his illicit harvests, he’d once again have to start from scratch, find his voice, and take another kind of risk: cultivating his first words. Set as a true crime memoir, The Hidden Pull is full of rebellious adventure, humor, and youthful self-sabotage; an entertaining and sincere account of growing up and learning the painfully necessary lessons of acquiring any craft, as well as finding and following one’s true path.

©2023 Theo Polo, Polo Creative Co., LLC (P)2023 Theo Polo, Polo Creative Co., LLC

Great ride.

Weed in the PNW as a book? I wasn’t sure what to expect but this is a great story. Mr Polo keeps you engaged through the yarn he spins. A story more about life and growing up than about indoor grows, but the grows are a great vehicle. Highly recommend!

POSITIV BOOK ON A CHALLENGING TOPIC

This is a very easy to follow book on a remarkably difficult subject - the choices and challenges one faces when transitioning into full-scale adulthood. Do not be tricked by the humor in every chapter, the core of the whole story itself is fundamentally serious.
This is a solid and welcome piece delivering high-density entertainment with endless surprising peculiarities only a careful and tireless observer can collect and process. The details of the entourage and characters are so tangible and vivid, they create the impression that the author actually lived through everything himself.
It is obvious that learning hard lessons comes to the story teller for a price, but it does not undermine his optimistic spirit. This book both emits and generates positive energy; it is hard not to think (even purely hypothetically) about trying something new and different, something never considered before, while reading it. There is no doubt it will trigger switching gears toward action in many young minds.
This is a very personal story with a candid expression of views, values, and genuine emotions towards various people, whom the author either loves or does not like but always appreciates as his companions contributing to the story of his life as he attempts to navigate it. This honesty highlights how open the author is about all of the ups and downs on his way, and how little he cares about his perception in the mind's eye of others. I love how serious he is about what he does and how he does it, but that he is not too serious about himself.
Finally, it is quite the crazy plot about a compartment of life hardly familiar to a majority of people, and about the unique characters inhabiting and shaping it.
Bottom line: this is a strong voice delivering a meaningful message in an elegant and colorful way. I hope we will hear this voice again.
Thank you!