Ratings338
Average rating3.9
I knew very little before I bought this book as part of one of the “pop-up” deals my Kindle Fire keeps giving me. After enjoying the suspense of this first title in the trilogy, I'm glad I own all three titles so that I can breeze through all of them without interruption! The story opens, as many of the most memorable novels do, with a mystery - what's going on with the protagonist Ethan and what's the secret underneath the beautiful, odd, remote town in which he wakes up? After a slow start, the story accelerates and the action begins. While realism isn't paramount (Ethan gets beaten and drugged numerous times and yet continues to keep fleeing danger), the story is engaging. And, not to spoil anything, the jaw-dropping unveiling of the secret surprised me and pleased me at how creative and original it is! Onward to the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy!
Pines by Blake Crouch is pretty similar. FBI agent wakes up in a small town with no idea how / why he got there. Lots of mysteries and very intriguing resolution to the plot. IMO the first book works as a standalone but there are two sequels which aren't very good. It's a case IMO of a book that got way popular beyond an authors expectations so he had to come up with sequels even though the story didn't demand it. First book is really good though with Lost / Silo type of mystery. → The tv show had 2 seasons. The 1st season covered all of the books from beginning to end, so you really could just watch that and be done. The 2nd season continues the story beyond the books but it does have a clear ending.
I'm beginning to think that Blake Crouch only likes writing amnesic main characters. That said, this one did end up being different enough from his other books to feel worth reading.
I was happy to see Twin Peaks mentioned in the Afterword - I also enjoyed this show and it's easy to see the influence. If Peaks was guilty of spending too much time on the mundanity of small town life, Pines might have erred in the opposite direction - I wouldn't have minded a bit more time marinating in the eerieness.
Interested to see what happens in the next books.
4.5 ⭐️
So good!! I didn't see any of the reveals/twists coming. I was thoroughly entertained. Love Blake Crouch!
holy... this messed me up in the best, most horrifying way possible. raised my heartbeat. had to stop reading so many times just to take a breather. itching to read the sequel.
Loved this. This guy knows how to write a book that's hard to put down. I've not seen the show and knew literally nothing about it going in, which was definitely the way to go. The twist is great. I'm excited for book 2!
Again, the story jumps right in with mystery/intrigue using an opening that brings the reader on the same journey as the protagonist to figure out what has already happened that leads to where we pick up the beginning of the story. The flow and pace of the prose is as good as any thriller and the author takes the exact right amount of time to take us through each piece of each scene. Good pace throughout, with some well written action scenes. Book takes a fun, engaging, and unexpected sci-fi turn in the last third, which might've been to be expected based on the author's later (and better?) works - and you might even be seeing where those stories all began. The ending also leaves you curious to where the next two novels will go with the story.
A little long, but Blake Crouch keeps me hooked. Legit TV show running in my mind. So eager to read Part 2!
When I first read this trilogy in 2016 I LOVED IT. Seven years later I've read a lot more and grown to expect a bit more from a book than toxic masculinity and fridging women, so my re-read was a hell of a letdown.
It's a shame since the premise is interesting, although The Lottery-esque setting of Wayward Pines was not believable in the least, let alone how the main character was seemingly invincible.
I might finish the trilogy again if I'm feeling masochistic enough.
Really hard to rate this one. I grabbed this one because every single time a book recommendation thread comes up asking for books like Twin Peaks, Wayward Pines trilogy is inevitably the top comment.
And as a book trying to give Twin Peaks vibes? 1/5. The Twin Peaks comparison is completely superficial. Yes, they both involve a idyllic PNW mountain town whose charming wholesome exterior masks a pulsing heart of darkness. But that's just setting. If someone asks for movies like Jungle Book, are you gonna recommend Predator because they both take place in the jungle and have a big sneaky antagonist with fangs?
Thematically they're so wildly incompatible that I feel almost insulted. TP is a deeply humanist work that answers the question of violence, human cruelty, and cosmic darkness with compassion and understanding. Ethan Burke however, REVELS in violence. He fantasizes about it, dreams about it, performs it, and only abstains from it when he's afraid of being caught for it. Pines apes Twin Peaks style without understanding beyond its surface details. It's Twin Peaks written by Michael Bay.
The thing is though, on its own merits? This is a pretty good fucking book. A blistering page turner with a fun puzzlebox at its core that completely falls apart and faceplants the ending. I read this in two sittings. It is delicious schlocky entertainment.
Was vacillating between a 4 and a 5 for most of my reading, but the ending dropped it to like 3-4, but since I'm curious enough to have grabbed the sequel, I'm thinking 4.
Yo... this was bananas. A fever dream. Enthralling. Fast. Neurotic. Satisfying.
Ganz nett, aber wenig reizvoll wenn man den Plottwost aus der Serie bereits kennt.
Another thriller from Blake Crouch with a wild, bizarre ending. I only took away one star for the over-the-top physical endurance displayed by the main character, Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke. I just couldn't accept that any human being could take the physical punishment this character went through and still be able to function. Otherwise, the way Crouch builds up and slowly unveils the mystery surrounding the Idaho town of Wayward Pines kept me furiously turning pages.
I found it to be really fun and exciting to compare and contrast the way the television show was done as compared to the source material, the book series. I loved seeing where things were similar and where they were vastly different. And boy! Were they vastly different for the most part! And, that's not a critique. I loved the television show and I love the first book (haven't read the others yet, so can't comment on those) as related works and as completely separate and individual works. They're wonderful.
The way Crouch writes is very easy to read and follow and understanding. This was a page-turner that I could hardly put down and I practically devoured it. The book answered a lot of the lingering questions that I had after watching the first season of the show and almost all of the questions that the book itself with all of its differences raised for me as I read it.
The only critique that I have is that there are places where it seems like Crouch could have done a little more research into certain things, but nothing altogether too drastic. I don't expect perfect adherence to science, for example, because when dealing with sci-fi elements you absolutely have to tweak things or even make things up. I just thought some of the tweaking and making-up-of-things in certain areas could've benefited by a bit more research. But, it's a nitpick rather than a true detraction. The book doesn't hurt for it.
I would absolutely recommend this book series to someone else. In a heartbeat.
Short Review: Decently written, engaging, but too violent. To me the reliance on torture as a method of dealing with whether or not the main character was going insane was just too much over the top. I know that dystopian books are not the most original genre out there, but this felt too much like a huge number of other books. I will probably read the next book since it is on Kindle Unlimited, but probably not for a little while.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/wayward-pines/
Here is my Amazon review - please give me a “helpful” vote - http://www.amazon.com/review/R3GJSFEDBFVJND/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
This book seems to have started life as an “internet serialized thriller.” Internet serialized thriller is a genre that evolved to fit the internet. The stories are short, fast-paced and formulaic. Part of the formula is to make the revelation and bait the hook so that readers buy the next instalment, and, heaven help us, the formula works.
This book – Pines – is part of the Wayward Pines trilogy, composed of Wayward, Pines and The Last Town. These books have been turned into the Wayward Pines summer television miniseries, starring Matt Dillon. The first season covers these books. The second season represents a major departure from the novel (novellas?). Actually, the reader who has seen the miniseries is in for some surprises as the television production made substantial changes in characters and backstories.
Although the secrets of Wayward Pines are probably known to most everyone after the miniseries, I still don't want to give away the big reveal, which is what kept me speed reading through this book, even though I had seen the show.
I enjoyed this book. It was fast pace and suspenseful and I enjoyed observing the anomalies and trying to figure out how they would appear to someone who wasn't in on the secret.
The story opens with Secret Service agent Ethan Burke waking up on the grass after a car accident. Initially, he has amnesia, but as he wanders the small town of Wayward Pines, he begins to flash back to his life and why he is in town. He's in town to investigate the disappearance of two other agents, one of whom, Kate, he had an affair with. He is given a clue by the Barmaid Beverly. It appears that Wayward Pines is locked down tighter than an East German prison. Burke escapes from the town only to stumble onto something very inexplicable. This book ends with the “big reveal” about what Waywards Pines really is.
The story clipped along nicely. The mystery was substantially interesting. The characters seemed fairly two-dimensional. This is a classic bit of summer reading/escapist fare.
One of the tropes used in this story has been overused in other books and movies. I find the idea that normal people would condone and participate in years of violence to be unbelievable. Nonetheless, by the end of this book I was interested in starting the second book. Perhaps book two will provide justifications and explanations for what I consider to be the weak parts in the plot of book one.
5 stars.
Whoa a ...what a freaking crazy.
I felt each and every emotion of Ethan while listening to this book on audible.
Thank you, amazon and Paul Michael Gracia (For narrating lovely) .........