As I’d mentioned previously, I get a daily newsletter for free and cheap ebooks for my Kobo e-reader. It’s something I really should stop, because while it sounds good in theory–what’s this? Free books? Yes, please!–the facts are that a) I continue to be a slow reader, and collect way more books through this newsletter than I could possibly ever keep up with, which is a fool’s game in and of itself, and b) as also mentioned in that same post, many… I’d say probably even most of those free books aren’t good.
And by “aren’t good”, I mean they range from “they may have had me for a while but then enough lack of interest in the story or problems with writing reveal themselves that I call it a wrap and move onto the next book”, all the way to some “being so bad that within the first couple of pages–holy crap, could you not get this edited or at least have someone offer you feedback on it?–that I stop reading the book and scrub it from my e-reader (would that scrubbing it from my brain were as easy)”.
I’ve had a few recently that lean toward the latter of that range.
And so, when I was poking around on the e-reader looking for what to read next, and leery of how many of them were from said newsletter and will prove to be a waste of my time, I came across Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. Which has gotten all kinds of praise and I think he said sold as a movie or a TV show, or somesuch? So clearly it was ticking a lot of boxes for a lot of people as being worthwhile. And that’s by no means a requirement for me to pay attention to something, but hey, when it comes with that kind of attention already attached, it doesn’t hurt.
And I’m happy to say, I’m about a fifth of the way in, and so far it’s proving to be one of those books that I don’t want to put down. And I’m talking debating on getting enough sleep vs. getting in more of the book-kind of good. Being okay with reading it on my phone as needed (and I’m no fan of reading prose on a cell phone screen)-kind of good. Which doesn’t happen as often as I’d like it to.
What’s helping it to some degree, of course, is the fact that Wanderers is not only really good but is getting to me after a run of disappointing reads, which makes it stand out even more by comparison. It’s like a mental breath of fresh air.
Suffice to say, were I you, I’d just skip all the… less-than-stellar books I recently plodded through and instead just check out Wanderers when you get the chance.