Pines (Wayward Pines, #1) in Crazy Challenge Connection

Aug 13, 2015 Gina rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club, part-of-a-series, ccc-club, 1st-in-series, family, 2012-book-releases, print-books, relationships, favorite-authors, science-fiction

Goodreads Description- Secret service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels…off. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation into the disappearance of his colleagues Goodreads Description- Secret service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels…off. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation into the disappearance of his colleagues turns up more questions than answers. Why can’t he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out? Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan further from the world he thought he knew, from the man he thought he was, until he must face a horrifying fact—he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.

This book is completely out of my usual genre choice. I am not a fan of science fiction, fantasy, dystopian fiction because I hate trying to figure out books with completely fictitious worlds, beings, languages, etc. I find them frustrating and frankly boring. However, I kept hearing all the hype about Pines and then saw ads for the TV mini-series and decided to give it a try. It is set on the real Earth with real humans doing real human things speaking regular languages....you think.

Pros:

The book is written in a large font with lots of spacing so even for a 280 something page book it reads extremely fast. The pacing of the book is also very fast, with the main character always running away, being chased, etc that I realized that I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to see what was going to happen next. The author constantly was throwing in twists that had me changing my mind about what was really going on in Wayward Pines. Every time I thought I had a grip on maybe what was happening, some twist was written that had me disposing my hypothesis, looking for another. The ending just blew me away. There were quite a few critics about how the end was written, but as a newbie to the genre I thought it was absolutely fascinating and creative leaving room, obviously for more books to be written for a series.

Cons:

All of the running about that our protagonist, Ethan, does happens without dialogue. Yes there is internal dialogue in Ethan but there is very little dialogue in the book in general. I wish there was more so I could have got to know all of the characters better. I wanted to know more about Ethan's background as well as more about some of the characters in town to learn more about their motivations. I also would like to know more about the town itself but I have to admit that I think Pines is the introduction and the following books will get into the specifics. At least I hope so. My last criticism is that some of Ethan's adventures are a little far fetched but is this just a part of science fiction/ fantasy where everything is absolutely made up by the author? Due to this question, I was able to suspend my disbelief and go with the flow and enjoy a good story.

All in all I really liked this book, which is a big deal! This is a fantastic offering for those readers like me who are new to the genre and need a starting point. It's also just a really great story! I can't wait to read the next book in the series and to check out the mini-series on the Internet to see how it translates to screen. This is a great book with very few and small flaws. 4 stars! ...more

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Nov 01, 2016 Megan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: wobble-2016

Now this is one twisty turny crazy story!

It's one of those books that I've been meaning to pick up and read for so long but just keep putting it off. I'm not usually a fan of mystery thrillers but I had heard so many good things that I decided to give it a go. As it turns out, Pines cannot be pigeon holed into any genre and mixes mystery, thriller, horror and even sci-fi.

The first third of the book reads like a fairly standard thriller but then the twists start coming thick and fast. The plot s ...more

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Aug 02, 2020 Kathryn rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, kindle-unlimited, suspense-thriller-mystery, read-in-2020

This is not my usual genre and my first book by Blake Crouch. When I started it, I wasn't enamored by i, but felt, I had to give it a chance. Then it really started getting me intrigued and pulling me into the story. But somewhere in the last half, I felt lost and bored. It seemed to jump around and the thoughts seemed incomplete. After I finished the book I decided to look over the reviews and see if there were others who felt as i did. Lots of comments talked about the choppiness of the writin ...more

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Aug 14, 2015 Colleen rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia

The protagonist is boring and the litany of injuries he sustains is tiresome and uninteresting. It takes a bit too long to get to the point and the writing isn't very engaging. Had this not been considered good enough to create a TV show on I would probably have given up on it, but assumed the "point" of this town was going to be a whopper.

meh....

The premise does have promise and I'll probably check out the TV show now, but won't bother reading the rest of the series. ...more

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Jan 07, 2017 Beth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Three stars and a few eye rolls most of the way through, but the last part — including the "big reveal" — got me. I went in not knowing much except a guy is stuck in a creepy town (cue Twilight Zone music). Was it great? No. Realistic? Nuh-uh. An entertaining read? Definitely. Do I want to read the next book in the series? You bet. ...more

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