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A review by altlovesbooks
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Maybe not the best book to read in 2020, but I read it on a whim and I'm glad I did it when I did it. It made the book feel like it carried a bit of extra weight, or baggage, or something when I could compare it to what's going on around me. You have a disease sweeping the world. You have a small group (the Flock) immune to the disease, walking like a sleepwalker to an unknown destination and guarded by a group of family and friends (the Shepherds). Then you have society unrest all around them, as fears and hatred become front and center. Things end for America, poorly.
This was a hard book to review. I really wanted to like it, to the point where I caught myself trying to rationalize myself to even just 4 stars "just because". In the end though, while I liked the journey and the concept, the ending was...really lackluster to me. Not a lot really happens over the course of the book, and while you get some really intimate pictures of the walkers and the shepherds painted for you, it's a lot of window dressing on a tire fire of society commentary. There's some red herrings thrown out for the ultimate cause of the disease, but despite that I still managed to not be surprised at all at where it led.
If you like the idea of end-of-the-world diseases, societal collapse, and all that sci-fi dystopian setting, maybe still give this a try. There's lots to like here. The ending didn't click with me though, but maybe it will for you.
This was a hard book to review. I really wanted to like it, to the point where I caught myself trying to rationalize myself to even just 4 stars "just because". In the end though, while I liked the journey and the concept, the ending was...really lackluster to me. Not a lot really happens over the course of the book, and while you get some really intimate pictures of the walkers and the shepherds painted for you, it's a lot of window dressing on a tire fire of society commentary. There's some red herrings thrown out for the ultimate cause of the disease, but despite that I still managed to not be surprised at all at where it led.
If you like the idea of end-of-the-world diseases, societal collapse, and all that sci-fi dystopian setting, maybe still give this a try. There's lots to like here. The ending didn't click with me though, but maybe it will for you.
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide, Rape, Torture, Racial slurs, Racism, and Sexism