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I really wanted to like this book. I've been on a kick lately of apocalyptic rebuilding books. This was billed as that, but it really isn't...not even a little bit. I still don't know why I finished it, normally it takes a lot to get me to stop a book part way through. This brought me to that point multiple times but I forced myself to push through it. A lot of that issue was the pacing and the overly long writing. This could have easily been edited down to 2/3 of what it was, that without even really trying. There is just so much nothing happening helped along by main characters who are required by the plot to act stupid. All it does is stretch the book way beyond what it should be. I'm normally one who enjoys a novel in this length, but this one really felt like it was longer than it already was.

So the elephant in the room...yeah that was intentional.

You cannot escape the relentless whoke shouting in your face in every chapter. I don't even agree or disagree with all the politics in this book, but it is over the top and completely unnecessary. in a way this was done very smart. The story is based in a good idea but poorly executed. To make up for this he is heavy handed with left wing ideals. His fans who follow him on social media have already been culled to exclude anyone who doesn't already agree with his political ideals. This then ensures he has a large following of people who agree with him politically. Then in something like wanderers he can just put in all the major talking points and people will love the book because it reaffirms what they believe. My guess is a lot of people who really enjoyed this aren't basing it on the plot, pacing, characters or lack of any part, but rather on the politics which is the true cornerstone of this book.

Wendig's politics are not hidden, he doesn't hide them anywhere. It is completely another matter to call everyone who lives in the middle of the United States a bigoted hateful racist white supremacist. It is quite literally as if he did a google search for a red blue map of the United States. Then wrote scenes to take place in these states where every person in said scenes was a gun waving redneck white supremacist. This is my first and last book I'll ever read of his, this shouting in my face in every chapter is not what I find enjoyable in a book. I'm also not mindless enough to like a book just because he says some things I agree with. If you are very left of center and want to read something you can get titillated over then this is definitely the book for you.

The plot and general idea isn't a bad one, it is just so poorly done and so riddled with the bigoted useless politics of the author. The whole book speaks to the straw man that every conservative is a racist, and everyone liberal is an angel. As is the nature of a straw man, once it is built it is very easy to knock over. The thing he doesn't realize. He is doing the exact same thing himself. He groups all those he finds to be wrong in one character type in the book and paints them as evil bad people simply because they disagree with him. This is exactly what makes the "evil republicans" in the book evil. Something tells me that would fall on deaf ears though.

Aside from the unnecessary politics, there are all sorts of things that are just never answered in the book. Major points of the plot that just are ignored, or things that are shoved into the book to fill a gap. It doesn't seem to matter if they fit or not.

love interest that is random, forced, and out of the blue.

mastermind programmer who made the worlds smartest quantum computer AI, but she doesn't actually seem to know anything about programming.

the worlds smartest computer that can only answer in yes and no? This quite literally makes none of the sense.

if the thing controlling all of this has selected the people for a reason why isn't it interested in keeping them from being killed?

Why wasn't it a bigger deal when the doctors realized the people couldn't be cut or poked with a needle? That is a pretty damn big revelation which the smartest doctors in the land just shrug about and ignore.

why do people blow up, this was never answered and it makes no sense. It is a clumsy way of forcing the plot to work.

A lot of words that tell a story that could have taken up 2/3 of the length, maybe even less.

The scene at the golden bears bridge doesn't do anything for the plot. It is quite pointless. we already know there are bad "republicans" trying to kill everyone blah blah.

most people who die in the book are just being killed because they can be. It doesn't serve the plot to kill them. It just makes the author untrustworthy.

Where did all these white supremacists come from? Sure they exist, but this book makes you think there are millions and millions of them. Of course all in the middle of the country.

Horrible gun research. People don't only take head shots, revolvers actually do function the same as a semi-automatic, it gets old.

An ending that is just nonsense.

things I learned from the book.

ALL cops evil and bad.

ALL military evil and bad.

ALL people in the mid-west evil, racist, and bad.

ALL religion evil and bad.

ALL republicans are super evil and bad.

ALL gun owners are evil and bad.

Overall I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't even get behind a single character. It was a really good idea, but it was ruined by the clear motivation to push the politics of the author. Whether you agree with all of it, some of it, or none of it; I still feel it is completely unnecessary. It is the only crutch to hold this book up for readers who agree with the author's world view. It really should be titled Whoke Ramblings.

I wanted to give this 2 stars just because the idea was so interesting. Then I finished the book and realized I was wrong. The book is just bad, really nothing else to say. It's just bad, the ending is the straw that broke the camel's back.