Wanderers has been on my TBR for years and it’s a brick of a book. With my longer commute now, I decided to borrow the audiobook since it seems to be the best way to make time for such a large book. I love post apocalyptic fiction as well as the vibes of The Stand, so I thought this would be right up my alley. 

This book had some interesting things going for it. I loved Benji and wasn’t bored at all watching the CDC characters try to figure out what was causing the sleepwalkers to roam as well as explode when stopped. I was intrigued by Black Swan, the nano-robots, and I enjoyed the shift from the flock to the real disease potentially plaguing mankind. 

So why am I rating this so low? 

The people.

Here’s what Stephen King gets right even when he meanders all over the place to tell a story: people. He captures even the most minor of characters in ways that make them meaningful and realistic. Even when they differ from us or make crazy decisions, they are real and complicated and relatable. And Chuck Wendig did not manage to do that with the most major of characters. While I do think Benji was pretty well fleshed out, he wasn’t quite understandable and his relationship with Sadie was weird. Sadie herself said and did things that made me roll my eyes as being so obviously written by a man. Shana was such a flat character even though she was arguably another main character! We got to know basically none of the flock, despite being surrounded by their loved ones as shepherds. All of the politics in this book were heavy handed and full of stereotypes and cookie cutter people. It’s so much more impactful storytelling when you can understand why seemingly normal people join militias and what motivates the leaders of such groups, but Ozark was just an evil redneck who basically acted like the leader of a prison gang. And that doesn’t make sense since he’s a free man and can wield his power in other ways. Every single person in his group were just bland evil rednecks with interchangeable names and faces. And while Ozark was awful and I’m not arguing that fact or hoping for any redeeming qualities, I feel like there was plenty of opportunity to make him more than a cookie cutter villainous character. And don’t get me started on the rock star guy who I feel ended up being a waste of pages and another stereotype. 

I kept reading just to see if we’d learn more about everyone and everything, but each new POV or character or event just happened without me feeling like I ever really understood anyone or their motivations. 

I didn’t even understand Black Swan’s reasons for doing what it did, so now I’m left feeling like the book was just one epic waste of time and I could have just reread The Stand. I don’t feel like the author did any research into middle America despite the book largely being set there and just wanted to write a story about how conservative Americans are evil closet White Supremacists, but in a really dumbed down and yet complex convoluted way.