Like a gritty post-apocalyptic jaunt through a lawless West, but your main character is a Buddhist monk who avoids hurting/killing people, when people want to kill him. Will is a courier for a potential cure for a plague that ravaged the world, but the man trying to stop him is actually the least of his worries. The remains of society, the lawlessness, the unchecked wilderness is doing a pretty good job of it on its own. Will reflects on this a lot during his journey, and his additional traveling companions, a cat named Cass, a raven named Peau, provide him with additional food for thought and perspectives throughout.

I appreciated the extensive inclusion of Buddhism/Buddhist principles throughout the book, as this is more meant to be an introspective journey than it is a gritty wall-to-wall dystopian adventure. I really felt a part of the world the author was crafting here, and I think I enjoyed the quiet moments of the journey and his interactions/troubleshooting along the way, more than the scenes involving actual action. I like how the author handles Cass and Peau's "talking", equal parts magical realism and plain understanding of animal vocalizations. I like the story told here as well, with the backstory of the Mayhems sprinkled in alongside the journey to get the cure to California.

A fantastic book. I enjoyed every minute of it.

I received a free e-arc through Netgalley. The blurb said it was similar to [book:The Passage|6690798] and I found that to be true. This was a fast read for me because it was hard to put down. I'm hoping for a sequel or maybe more books from other peoples' POV during the same fictional period. Please keep writing!

I'm always a sucker for post-apocalyptic dystopian survival stories, and I like the structure of road novels where a character is on a journey with a fixed end point. The blurb promised a "highly original contribution" to the genre, so I was excited to give The Way a go.

Initially I really enjoyed this. Although it's billed as SF&F the speculative elements (aside from "the majority of the global population have perished due to a mystery contagion") are initially fairly light, and at first it read much more like a western. Journeying across an American west populated by escaped zoo animals in an old Ford F-150 pulled by a pair of mules is very compelling to me, and the opening sequences had me hooked.

Unfortunately as time wore on I became less enamoured with things. Will spends his time talking to his cat Cassie and a raven named Peau that has adopted him, and initially it's hinted that his belief he can talk to them is linked to the illness that's killed everyone over the age of 30 (but not, for some reason, him). It's a little weird, but weird is fine. As things progress, though, his conversations with the bird and the cat become much less ambiguous, until he's holding explicit dialogues with them - something that other characters begin to take part in, too. It all became a little too farfetched for me, particularly as there's never any real attempt made to explain why humans can suddenly communicate with animals without any real issues. Things get even more ridiculous in a sequence in which the cat goes into heat and has sex with the raven, which is played off as being completely unremarkable. I almost put the book down at this point, but the rest of the story was compelling enough that I wanted to see where things went.

Ultimately I don't know if it was really worth persevering. There are some good set pieces and moments here, and it's competently written, but the ending feels like it suddenly rushes to tie everything up after having previously feeling like the book was happy to take its time getting to where it's going, and the ending it rushes towards isn't an especially good one. Particularly as so much of the book is concerned with Buddhist philosophy and talking about allowing things to take their natural course, I had hoped that a little more time would be allotted to allow things to resolve themselves.

My biggest problem, though, is one of simply not believing the central premise. A few characters mention that Will is uniquely suited to the task of urgently transporting a potential miracle cure across thousands of miles of hostile territory, but it's never made clear why this is true of a former science writer who has spent 15 years living in seclusion in a meditation centre. And during the course of his journey he isn't really tested in any way that demonstrates why he's the best choice. Everything comes fairly easily to him, and even in moments of peril he's often saved by acts of nature that verge on deus ex machina.

This isn't to say that there's nothing to like here. The post-catastrophe world is well realised and the few characters we meet feel real and complex. Some of the set pieces are really fun - particularly the train ride across the desert - and I just wish everything had a little more weight to it.

Overall this was an enjoyable, if inconsistent, read that may have benefitted from doing less with the speculative elements - specifically the conversational animals and weird interspecies sex scene - and leaning harder into the western side of things.

Thank you to NetGalley, Spiegel & Grau Publishing, and Cary Groner for allowing me to preview this title before it is available for publication, in exchange for an honest review.

I love apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic novels and was excited to get a chance to read this one. This book takes place in the future where the population has been decimated and all that is left are those under the age of 40. Our narrator, Will, is actually pushing 60 which is an anomaly in this new world. He is tasked with taking a cure to CA but is being chased by someone. He is traveling with a cat and raven, both of whom in which he can communicate, and he picks up a young girl along the way.

This book is incredibly slow. It was over halfway through the book before you are officially told that the population was destroyed through a virus and that something called Disease X, for whatever reason, appears to kill people once they are in their late 30s to early 40s. There is a lot of Buddhist theology discussed throughout, often for pages at a time. The narrator's dead, love of his life is a scientist and, while he talks about her incessantly in the flashbacks, there appears to be no chemistry. Their conversations fall flat and I simply could not figure out what about her was so appealing. The weirdest thing, however, is him talking to the cat and raven. Like full conversations. Once about sex. It was very cringy. The "twist" at the end was HIGHLY predictable and horribly anticlimactic.

Overall, I simply did not care for this book. I thought the writing was sophomoric and preachy. Maybe I wasn't the intended audience for this book?

This book is a lot like The Postman in that it has a lone man on a mission, traveling North America after a plague wipes out most of the population.
What I don’t understand is why it would take months to travel from Colorado to California. It took homesteaders 4-6 months to travel from St. Louis to California with 19th Century technology and without roads. This guy is traveling with a mule driven car on modern roads, even at mule speed it should take a month at most with pit stops.

BOOK REPORT
Received a complimentary copy of The Way, by Cary Groner, from Spiegel & Grau/NetGalley, for which I am appreciative, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Scroll past the BOOK REPORT section for a cut-and-paste of the DESCRIPTION of it from them if you want to read my thoughts on the book in the context of that summary.

I wanted to like this book more than I did, because: opinionated cat.

Alas, it was so much better in concept than execution. And I just hate to say that, because good for Cary Groner for trying to synthesize a particular worldview and tie it in with very of-the-moment issues like pandemics and climate change.

It’s just that he spent so, so much time (relatively speaking) on the topic of meditation. I mean, maybe other people “get” that more than I do, but I felt like he was attempting to describe how the number nine tastes.** Either you’ve had the experience and get it in a visceral way, or you haven’t and you don’t.

And won’t.

Also, the whole book was wildly implausible, and for some reason I just couldn’t suspend disbelief. It did bring back good memories of reading Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was in college, though. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...)

**THE NUMBER NINE**
It tastes like ice from one of those metal ice trays, ice that has been sitting in the freezer for way too long and has a weird odor. And some hoarfrost on it.

PS
Just to ice this particular cake, I’ll note for the record that the cover of The Way was very depressing and off-putting. I mean, I supposed that’s fitting for a novel about a mostly dystopian future, but in my humble opinion it’s not gonna help sales any.

DESCRIPTION
A postapocalyptic road trip and a quest for redemption.

The world has been ravaged by a lethal virus and, with few exceptions, only the young have survived. Cities and infrastructures have been destroyed, and the natural world has reclaimed the landscape in surprising ways, with herds of wild camels roaming the American West and crocodiles that glow neon green lurking in the rivers.

Against this perilous backdrop, Will Collins, the de facto caretaker of a Buddhist monastery in Colorado, receives an urgent and mysterious request: to deliver a potential cure to a scientist in what was once California. So Will sets out, haunted by dreams of the woman he once loved, in a rusted-out pickup pulled by two mules. A menacing thug is on his tail. Armed militias patrol the roads. And the only way he’ll make it is with the help of a clever raven, an opinionated cat, and a tough teenage girl who has learned to survive on her own.

A highly original contribution to the canon of dystopian literature, The Way is a thrilling and imaginative novel, full of warmth, wisdom, and surprises that reflect our world in unsettling, uncanny, and even hopeful ways.

First off, let me start by thanking Netgalley for a copy of this book to review. Additionally, a copy is being bought for our library system.

I will have to say that before given the opportunity to review this book, I knew nothing of this author or his previous work. And really, I know, almost nothing about Buddhism which features boldly in the story. But that is not a bad thing, and I actually enjoyed all the philosophical or esoteric bits.

But, I am getting ahead of myself. The reality is that the book subject matter appealed to me, right from the first sentence of reading a synopsis. It's one of those things that let you know right away whether you're going to like something or not before you even know anything about the subject. All the ingredients where there.
- Near future.
- Some kind of catastrophe.
- A Dystopian, post-apocalyptic society.
Finally, there was one other thing that caught my attention, the general "The World Without Us" vibe. It wasn't until I finished the book and read the author's notes that I found out that the author is a big fan of the "World Without Us." The same as me! (A quick aside: When growing up, I always had this side of me, where for example, I'd look out the back window into the back yard and would imagine, what would the world look 5 year from now if we, humans, disappeared from it? What would it look in 100 year? In 1000+ years? Then came the book: "The World Without Us" and the History Channel TV series, and I was in my element. Sometimes, I wonder why I did not take advantage of the itch I carried all my life and write a book like "The World Without us" before Alan Weisman did - But that's a topic for another day.)

There are authors in the genre whose every word has been consumed voraciously by this reader. I probably don't even need to name some of these authors. Although, by post-apocalyptic, I also include certain stories where humans are caught in some kind of "apocalypse" type of event that might displace them into the far future or a different galaxy or a different reality or the far or near past.

Did this novel use some of the tropes of this type of fiction? Probably. But we also need to understand that some of these "tropes" are also the "episodes" or "vignettes" that make up a story that moves the plot along. Look, you will not find something groundbreaking in this book. You will, however, find a very satisfying narrative, very well told, and in some ways very original. What I mean by that is that the themes that make up the whole are more than just tropes. The sum is greater than the parts that make up the narrative and the story achieves its purpose.

Yes, I would highly recommend this book, and I do not mind giving it four and a half stars.

This is the story of a quest west across a post apocalyptic America, where a lethal virus has wiped out 80% of the population. It is a strange and compelling mix of contemplative introspection, and danger and jeopardy - sometimes gentle, and sometimes gripping, but always thoughtful.

From the blurb:

“Against this perilous backdrop, Will Collins, the de facto caretaker of a Buddhist monastery in Colorado, receives an urgent and mysterious request: to deliver a potential cure to a scientist in what was once California. So Will sets out, haunted by dreams of the woman he once loved, in a rusted-out pickup pulled by two mules. A menacing thug is on his tail. Armed militias patrol the roads. And the only way he’ll make it is with the help of a clever raven, an opinionated cat, and a tough teenage girl who has learned to survive on her own.”

A majority of the story is taken up by Will’s quest west. He is accompanied by his cat, Cassie, and a raven, Peau, and somehow, they can all understand each other. This is recognised as being unusual by both Will and those he meets, and is never really explained. The additional perspectives of a cat and a raven - especially the raven - provide an interesting reflection on Will’s own thoughts and emotions, as well as the raven being a handy scout for Will as he treks through unknown territory.

For me, the heart of the book is the reflective nature of Will’s rumination on his own behaviour, thoughts, and emotions as he travels west. As he meets a variety of people in different and difficult situations, Will contemplates the meaning of his own flawed motivations and behaviour, and of the behaviour of others.

This is all rooted in Will’s Buddhist background; the author mentions his own modest knowledge of Buddhist philosophy in the Acknowledgements, and thanks his teachers in the Tibetan tradition. I have no direct knowledge of experience of Buddhism, and have only dabbled with meditation, but I found Will’s gentle and honest introspection very thought provoking, and in places quite moving.

Despite this reflective context, the plot is surprisingly gritty in places, and the realities of survival in the dystopian world that Will finds himself aren’t romanticised - this is a harsh world, with pockets of human pain amongst the backdrop of the natural world reclaiming its place. Unfortunately, it’s in the resolution of this plot that I felt the book was at its weakest. In the closing chapters, Will’s quest comes to a conclusion, and the details of what Will finds at his destination, and the identity and purpose of his pursuers, is revealed - and I found it oddly unsatisfying.

But despite the ending lacking the emotional impact I was expecting, and some of the explanation of the plot feeling a little contrived, I can forgive this book because of the depth and reflective introspection of the quest. There were many times that I stopped and highlighted a section, and sat and thought about it for a few minutes. This is a book that I will undoubtedly revisit, and get something new from it on each reading.

Thank you #NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for the free review copy of #TheWay in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

A cozy little dystopian journey. Cass and Peau were delightful and easy favorites. I sometimes got the sense that Groner knows just how affably he can write protagonists, and that made me wary, but admittedly that's just a sense i got from the writing, nothing overt. More Buddhist overtones than i'd prefer, but overall that fact made sense for the character, and i didn't mind Will's pursuit of answers to living ethically in a violent world. His sweetness and integrity with Sophie was also a welcome reprieve to the direction that dynamic can often take. Overall i was bracing for something grimmer, waded through some expository spiritual sections, and pleasantly surprised by the resolution.

I’m a sucker for a post apocalyptic story. This was a great tale of living life while you still can. Animals play a significant part in Will's story, and without spoiling too much, the dynamic traveling companion duo of a Raven and a Cat was really a fun one.

I could have done without the lengthy detailed sections about Buddhism, classic novels, quantum mechanics and more. These sections made the book feel too highbrow for me and took away from the exciting pace of the main post-apocalyptic storyline.

I really enjoyed this book, it's very calm despite being dystopian. The way it was written had a very calming effect on me, even when situations it wrote about were stressful.

It is very realistic and while there are other books with apocalyptic diseases events, this one takes a lot more peaceful approach. The world fell apart and it's slowly building up again. There are dangers, but nothing extreme, most people didn't become feral, most simply want to live in peace.

I greatly enjoyed the addition of animals, they added a lot of warmth to the book. Peau is great.

I thoroughly enjoyed this post-apocalyptic tale that takes place in the western US after a series of pandemics decimate the world's population. The stakes are high. The characters are well-drawn and engaging. The world building is excellent. I absolutely loved the idea of the glow-in-the-dark fresh-water crocodiles, not to mention the Maine coon cat and the raven who can "talk" with the main character and save his bacon on more than one occasion. "The Way" includes a fair amount of material about Zen Buddhism, which I found interesting, even if I didn't understand all of it. While I thought the story very original, I also found it reminiscent of books and films like Stephen King's "The Stand," Cormac Mc Carthy's "The Road," and Kevin Costner's "The Postman." Readers who liked those tales may very well like this.

My thanks to NetGalley, author Cary Groner, and publisher Spiegel & Grau for providing me with a complementary electronic ARC. All of the foregoing is my independent opinion.

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 stars.

I really enjoyed this tale, in a genre that has been very popular of the last several years. What set this one apart was the author's Buddhist background and the characters' ability to speak/communicate with some animals. The relationship with the raven, Peau, was brilliant.

This was a very thoughtful, intelligently-written novel. Highly recommend.

I received a complimentary copy of the novel from the publisher and NetGalley, and my review is being left freely.

I chose to read The Way by Cary Groner during my Colorado trip. This was a good choice, as I am familiar with many of the landscapes and areas mentioned in the book.
I enjoyed reading this post-pandemic about a menagerie of characters as they trek across the U.S. to complete their given task. This is the first novel I've read with a definite Buddhist flair, and I enjoyed learning a bit about Buddhism and reading about the main character's faith and the struggles to adhere to it during such tumultuous times.
The animal characters were perhaps my favorite part of this book (except one rather ...off animal interaction); I appreciated the banter between the animals/animals and the animals/humans. Very interesting to witness avian raven behavior in the book as well.
There is some mention of the value of literature, film, and writing as well, to show the thirst for culture.
The methods of survival would make a reader who identifies as a "prepper" happy as well (though I know said prepper will read with an analytical eye.)

Overall, well worth my while to read. I'd be interested to see what else the author brings us to read in the future.


Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance ebook.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Speigel & Grau for providing the opportunity to read the ARC of Cary Groner’s ‘The Way’.

Now for my honest review:

Despite the pursuit of Will Collins, for some unknown reason, by Buck Flynn and the subsequent violence which that chase engenders (serendipitously for a Buddhist monk mostly by nature); Cary Groner’s ‘The Way’ is a rather gentle journey from Colorado to California to deliver a possible ‘cure’ for Disease X that has devastated the world. As Will and his traveling companions, a cat named Cassie, a raven named Peau, and Sophie, an orphan, trek west, the return of fauna and the flora to the now nearly human-free planet makes for a verdant and visually rich, though dangerous, landscape within which to travel. And even in a post pandemic world, scattered communities struggling to survive typically welcome Will in, providing rest and sustenance.

It is only the impending threat of Flynn, and what will happen when he catches Will, that creates any urgency to his trip. Though that threat was often forgotten by Will, and I did wonder at the casual nature of this journey as if the author needed the travelers to stop to allow Flynn to catch up or for the author to make a point.

The dynamic relationship that develops between Will and Sophie is engaging, and the ability to communicate with Cassie and Peau an essential component to the story. Important environmental/philosophical/social issues are addressed throughout the book and much time is spent in discussion, yet the segue to them from the action at times felt contrived and in those moments the author may have intruded too much. This gave me pause. Just something to get through.

Other than the sense that the author was just a page turn away, ‘The Way’ was an enjoyable read along the lines of John Crowley’s ‘Engine Summer’.

I can get down with a post apocalyptic dystopian road trip where the main dude is trying so hard to meditate but also he's dr. dolittle and can talk to his cat and raven and also a raving mad man is after him, so yeah it's a little hard to be a peaceful buddhist in this situation.

But then the book tries a little to hard to be cozy where every bad thing that happens to them gets wrapped up in a neat bow including the ending of the book. This is about 3.5 stars for me, rounded up to 4 stars because I was a big fan of this 2 person 2 critter road crew. If the ending had been stronger it would be a more 4 star read for me, however, the clean ending had me rolling my eyes.

Firstly - thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Speigel & Grau for the ARC of this book.

So, I had genuinely no idea what to expect from The Way because I requested it ages ago and forgot to read it when I got approved. All I know is when I originally read the description I thought it sounded great.

And do you know what? It was.

The Way follows the story of Will, traversing a destitute and dystopian American midwest on a personal and practical journey. In a world ruled by the young, as the old have died out due to a pandemic preventing ageing, it's sobering to realise that you have to live your life as quickly as you possibly can, or risk never living at all.

Cary Groner takes us on a beautiful and hazardous journey through the spiritual and natural world, offering a very unique take on the traveller's story. It weaves science, religion - namely Buddhism - the natural world, and what it means to be a family.

Animals play a huge part in Will's story, and without spoiling too much, the dynamic travelling companion duo of a Raven and a Cat was hilariously - and sometimes shockingly - refreshing.

It wasn't my usual go-to read, but I'm extremely glad I picked up the ARC, and I'd highly recommend giving it a go. If you're not afraid of a warm and at times arduous journey, I think you'll like this.

3.9/5.0

This is a gentle dystopia road trip book, and I really enjoyed it.

A disease has killed most of the population a few years ago and there are scattered communities with small successes and also bands of militarized men who want to 'be in charge of all the things'. That is the setting. In this world, a man who has been in a Buddhist monastery has been asked to deliver a potential cure to a lingering disease to California, several former states away. This is the story of his travel, chased by someone who wants the cure for himself, fending off wild animals (many of whom escaped from zoos and have thrived), and meeting friends and helpful strangers along the way. This trip is fraught with the usual dystopian problems - food, safety, crumbled infrastructure - but he meets good people along the way. He does spend a bit of time discussing how his Buddhist practices influence his journey, which some may find too spiritual or reflective, but I found it fit well with the general calmness of the book.

I always worry with books of this genre about portrayals of violence and can report only one short scene of described torture, and no scenes of sexual violence. There is a fair share of death, but it is not described in detail.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a lovely reflective break from other more gruesome dystopian works. Some may find it too slow or calm or gentle, but for me it hit just right. I am already telling people to add this to their TBR list.

I was deeply moved by the nuanced portrayal of personal journeys and the search for meaning. Groner's writing is both lyrical and introspective, capturing the emotional landscape of his characters with precision and depth. The exploration of relationships is particularly well-executed, as the intertwined lives reveal the complexities of love and forgiveness.
However, there were moments when the pacing lagged, particularly in the middle sections, which made it challenging to maintain momentum. While the story’s themes are profound, some plot points felt slightly contrived, leading to predictable resolutions that detracted from the overall impact.
Despite these, the rich character development and thoughtful exploration of life's paths make it a compelling and thought-provoking read that resonated with me long after finishing the book.

It reminded me a lot of The Stand in that desolated post-apocalypse type of world setting. I enjoyed the characters and the friendship that Will and Sophie developed. Cassie and Peau were an odd addition that I might have left out.