Pines by Blake Crouch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I watched the TV show and only now read the book. Some may like the TV show better. For me, the book is far better–with surprising literary qualities amidst the terror, the savagery and the mystery. Now I must wonder what happens in the next two books. It took the second season of the TV show (if my memory is correct) to reveal all (and probably things not in the trilogy). Here the big mystery is laid bare in book one, but not until the very end. Obviously the books and the show were very different. So, I must read the next two.

What literary qualities? OK, not so many, but here’s a couple samples:

“The sweet cold water. The bright sound of the river tumbling down through the canyon. The clatter of stones shifting under the current. The piercing blue of the sky. To be warm again lifted his spirits.”

and

“scooted forward until he perched on the edge of the alcove. The rain had stopped. The night sky hemorrhaging starlight. He’d never had the slightest interest in astronomy but he found himself searching for familiar constellations . . .”

You probably won’t read this book looking for literary motifs, but it’s interesting to me that a book like this has some.

View all my Goodreads reviews