The Wayward Pines Trilogy

Posted on: 30 July 2024

Disclaimer: I’ve tried to avoid any overt spoilers, but if you want to enjoy the story completely blind, maybe skip the post. TL;DR: this is a great trilogy of books. Go read it!

I set a target this year to read at least one fiction book every month. I’ve always had a love of sinking into a good story in written form, so I knew the only thing that would slow me down in this challenge was finding the books.

I’ve read a few of Blake Crouch’s books over the past few years and have enjoyed them all. Epic story-telling and amazingly well researched and engaging science fiction. I’d had the first book in his Wayward Pines trilogy on my reading list back in 2021 so I figured that’d be a good place to get the ball rolling this year.

There’s something about a remote, alpine backdrop, complete with cliffs, streams and forests of pine trees that both soothes and excites me. This is the setting for the Wayward Pines trilogy, a small town in rural Idaho with an unsettling peculiarity of disappearances. A premise as old as time, but one I gobble up in story form.

The first book, Pines, puts you instantly on edge and desperate to learn what is going on in the main character Ethan’s current predicament. Blake creates a palpable sense of disorientation that encapsulates Ethan’s mental state. The book slowly unravels the mystery of the small town of Wayward Pines.

The first book does a masterful job of keeping you guessing as to what’s going on and creating an unease to the deepening perilous situation. But it’s not until the end that we learn of the horrifying reality of the situation. I had my theories but I didn’t see the reveal coming.

The second book and sets a different tone of Ethan adapting to his new life and society. We begin to learn more about the new world and the people in it and how it came to be. There's a revolt in the making and a suspicious murder to investigate.

The third book is all-out action. Events quickly unravel and desperation ensues as the characters we’ve grown to know well fight for their lives, and the insidious beliefs of the antagonist are laid bare. The third book in particular hops back and forth on the timeline as we delve deeper into the character's pasts and find out what brought them there.

I read each of the instalments of this enthralling trilogy in 2 weeks or less. By the final book I was stringing reading sessions apart to eek it out that little bit longer, knowing it was reaching its conclusion.

Blake Crouch has the ability to immerse you in dystopian scenarios and create a creeping sense of peril that you can’t look away from. But there are touching moments of humanity and closeness that keep this trilogy relatable. The protagonist is the wily, brave and stubborn character needed to push the story along and the antagonists are aplenty as we try to discern who we can trust and who we can’t.