Pines by Blake Crouch – An Audiobook Review

Blurb:

Wayward Pines, Idaho, is quintessential small-town America — or so it seems. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in search of two missing federal agents, yet soon is facing much more than he bargained for. After a violent accident lands him in the hospital, Ethan comes to with no ID and no cell phone. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels…off. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation into his colleagues’ disappearance turns up more questions than answers. Why can’t he make contact with his family in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what’s the purpose of the electrified fences encircling the town? Are they keeping the residents in? Or something else out? Each step toward the truth takes Ethan further from the world he knows, until he must face the horrifying possibility that he may never leave Wayward Pines alive…

 

Author: Blake Crouch

Narrator: Paul Michael Garcia

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Length: 8 hrs 33 mins

Audio Release Date: 21/08/2012

My Rating of ‘Pines’: 3 out of 5

Purchase: Audible UK, Audible US

 

Review:

I have enjoyed a couple of Blake Crouch’s books so far (Abandon and Dark Matter) so it was with a fair bit of excitement that I used my audible credit on Pines.

The overall concept grabbed me right away. A member of the secret service waking up after a car accident in Wayward Pines with no way of contacting the outside world and seemingly no way of escaping the town limits.

It’s an incredibly exciting concept and, as the book goes on, it drip feeds the reader more and more interesting bits that just add to the overall intriguing nature and constantly keep the reader wondering what’s going to happen next.

However, I couldn’t help but feel unenthused throughout large parts of it. It felt as if the excitement factor would suddenly slow and I’d find it hard to get back into it in the way I would have liked to for a thriller book. I wouldn’t say that I was underwhelmed but I just didn’t feel it in the way the author would have hoped his audience might.

I couldn’t quite pinpoint just what I felt was missing but I knew something was the whole way. One negative, for me, is that the time isn’t adequately stated. So you never know what year something is taking place. There is a reason for this but, even knowing that, I just felt like certain parts were shoehorned together rather than fitting seamlessly.

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy Pines. I did, I just didn’t enjoy it like I wanted to do. Despite the somewhat average level of enthusiasm, I most likely will carry on with this series, but it will be at a later date when my enthusiasm has picked up again, hopefully.

I feel stopping after the first book is no terrible thing seeing as how the first book ended in a way that, if I were to never pick the series up again I would be satisfied to a degree. Almost felt like a standalone novel of sorts that has been expanded into a trilogy.