Wanderers (Wanderers #1) by Chuck Wendig

Sometimes you hear about an audiobook about a pandemic that is over 32 hours long and you get it immediately from the library, right? Well, that's how I picked up Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. 

A new affliction strikes a small number of Americans. They appear to be sleepwalking in a horde, going to an unknown destination. Nothing seems to hurt them, nothing, that is, except for if you try to stop them. These people are known as the flock and the friends and family who follow them are called shepherds. And there are scientists and people from the CDC trying to figure out what's going on with them.

Meanwhile, in Texas, some bats attack some people at a press conference and those people begin to get sick. 

And...a pandemic begins.

What is so amazing about this book is that it was published in 2019 and the talk of quarantines and social distancing and contact tracing and testing with a swab up your nose WAS SO PRESCIENT. 

But. Hm. It's not a perfect book. There's a lot about religion and I do understand that people would turn to religion in an apocalypse, but the ending of the book was very disappointing to me on this front. Also, there are some very sexually violent scenes that were deeply upsetting (to me - maybe you'd be fine!). It's also pretty blatant in its disregard for people with certain anti-science, pro-religion views. And that's fine! But it's also disturbing how quickly those same people become Nazis. I mean, maybe that's right. Maybe after the 2016 election, Wendig is right to make those connections crystal clear. But I like to think there are non-Nazis out there in the American South. But maybe I'm just sticking my head in the sand.

I liked this, but I didn't love it. Should you read it? I don't know. It's long. It's immersive. But in the end, I thought the first part of the book was far better than the second half and I will not be reading the sequel.  

3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

"That is how science and medicine are practiced best, though. We are best when we admit our ignorance up front and then attempt to fill the darkness of not knowing with the light of information and knowledge." (Chapter 9)

I highlighted this as clunky dialogue, but the literal next line was a character calling out this character for being too poetic. It felt like real awareness on the part of the author. 

"It's like I've got a hole inside of my mind and inside that hole is a voice -  sometimes it's loud, sometimes it's quiet, but it's always, always there. That voice tells me that I'm not good enough and the world is going to hell and nothing matters. I'll never be a famous artist, the coral reef is bleached and dead...and it doesn't matter anyway because global warming is going to boil us or bake us, but that only happens if North Korea doesn't drop a bomb in our lap first. Or maybe a plane will crash on my head. Or maybe the ground will swallow me up or maybe I'll get cancer and it will eat me up." (Chapter 14)

Okay, real talk. This was a character explaining to another character why she needed medication for her depression. And, like, isn't this everyone's internal monologue? There is a reason I'm always listening to podcasts or audiobooks - it's an attempt to drown this out. IS THIS NOT NORMAL? 

Anger ran through Shana. People were supposed to have answers. Experts were supposed to know shit. And they didn't know anything. (Chapter 15)

And now we have RFK Jr. 

...Benji knew they would call it a civil war, although in it, civility was lost. (Chapter 59)

Egads. 

Life looked normal at a distance, even though when you looked close, you could see the panic and the chaos setting it. (Chapter 63)

Do you remember this from the early days of the pandemic? Surface level things were sort of normal, but they really weren't?

Is a book only real its printed or is it real the moment its written in a word processing program? Are one's thoughts only real once they leave the mind? Are they real once expressed in an electronic mail or across social media? Or do they only become real once they manifest in a way that has an effect - a tree falling in the forest with someone to hear? Perhaps all of everything is a simulation. (Chapter 68)

I spent too long pondering this. 

Things I looked up:

QEPD (Chapter 64) - the Spanish abbreviation for "que en paz descanse," which translates to "rest in peace" (R.I.P.) in English

dour (Chapter 65) - I looked this up because I thought the narrator pronounced it incorrectly, but it turns out I'm the one who's been pronouncing it incorrectly. 

Lloyd Alexander books (The Prydain Chronicles) (Chapter 65 and 77) - Lloyd Alexander was an American author of more than 40 books, primarily fantasy novels for children and young adults. Over his seven-decade career, Alexander wrote 48 books, and his work has been translated into 20 languages.

Hat mentions (why hats?):

camo hat (Chapter 21 x2, Interlude between Parts II and III)

baseball hat (Interlude between Parts II and III)

John Deere hat (Chapter 26)

Kubota trucker hat (Chapter 42)

all hat and no cattle (Chapter 72) -   All hat and no cattle is a saying that means someone is all talk and no action. It describes a person who tries to look rich or important but lacks real substance. 

cowboy hat (Chapter 79)

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Okay, who's in for a 32 hour audiobook about a pandemic?