A review by lilifane
Pines by Blake Crouch

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is basically a Black Mirror episode. Or a combination of several Black Mirror episodes. 
It's super fast paced, action packed, mysterious, scary, reads like a video game most of the time. 
I liked the premise, I liked the protagonist, I liked the mystery a lot! The way you don't know what is going on most of the time, was really cool. I absolutely loved the ending. And although I know it's a series, it can totally be read as a standalone. I think I even prefer it that way and don't think I will read the other books anytime soon. 
Two things that bothered me: I didn't care for the war flashbacks. I understand why they are there but I really didn't like them. And more importantly (and also the reason this isn't a 5 star for me), it was too violent. I was okay with most of the violent scenes because I get their purpose but the bonfire scene was just too much for me. It was really brutal, wish I could unread it tbh. 
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