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Pines by Blake Crouch

 

I'll admit I got a late start in knowing that Blake Crouch is an amazing author. I had picked up a copy of Dark Matter at a local bookstore because I liked the cover. I brought it home, put in on a shelf, and it languished in my TBR pile with several hundred other books. Last year I needed something to fit a reading challenge prompt and noticed Dark Matter would be a fit, so I decided to read it. I was wary, as SciFi is not a genre I have ever been interested in, but holy crap, was it a good story. 

Currently, I am waiting for Recursion to be returned to my local library so I can read it for a prompt this year (also, just because I want to read it. Have you checked out the Google Preview? I was hooked on the first page!). Anyway, I was spending my yearly Christmas book gift certificate the other day and saw the name Blake Crouch as I was scanning the shelves, which is how I stumbled upon, and came to own, Pines. 

I picked it up yesterday to do a little reading before I called it a night, and the next thing I knew, I was turning the last page and it was WAY past my bedtime. It was so, so good. I didn't care for a bit near the end (more on that later), but otherwise, I really enjoyed this book. 

Ethan Burke is an agent with the Secret Service looking into the disappearance of two other agents in Wayward Pines, Idaho. Things go south pretty much immediately upon his arrival and they continue on a downward spiral. Just when you think it can't get any worse, or any more weird, it does. I enjoyed the chapters told from his wife's point of view. The first one really threw me for a loop because the strange just kept getting stranger. 

I really don't want to give too much away here, but I will say that I think anyone who enjoys a twisty thriller or mystery, regardless of an interest in SciFi, will definitely enjoy this book. The people are creepy in the most unconventional way (seeming so perfectly nice and normal from the outside, but holy hell are they crazy when those phones start to ring), and the fear is a low-level undercurrent that I found just right to keep me turning the pages.


POTENTIAL SPOILERS COMING UP - skip the next paragraph if you don't want to know any specifics.....


I referenced at the start that there was a part of this story that just really didn't do it for me, and that was the human-ish mutations he faces in the woods after he escapes from that creepy hospital with Beverly's help and gets over the electric fence. I understand what they were and what they represent, I just found it too unrealistic (yes, I know it's fiction) to think that in less than 2,000 years humans could mutate from us to them. I truly did love the rest of the story, including what he found in the cave system and the explanation for what he was seeing and why it was all done. The mutts just didn't work for me. I felt like I had been reading a Stephen King-esque horror/SciFi story and was suddenly thrust into a dystopian land à la Suzanne Collins. This was the only place the story felt flat for me.


POTENTIAL SPOILERS OVER  - welcome back!

Overall, I very much enjoyed Pines by Blake Crouch. I already have Wayward queued up and ready on  my iPad after I get through my next few reads. I definitely recommend giving this one a try. Side note, if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, you can read it for free.

Final Rating:

★★★★☆ (I can't find a half-filled in star to use here, so let me say it's a 4.5 for me)

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