I'll be honest and admit that I decided to read this book simply because of the fact that it has been adapted into a television series. That said, if you've seen the first five episodes of Wayward Pines the television show, this review will not contain any spoilers for you.
The only character really developed in the Pines is Ethan Burke. We learn about his fear and his PTSD, after having been captured and tortured in Afghanistan. Ethan is clearly a haunted man. He knows that he hasn't been a good father to his son and he most certainly has not been a good husband to his wife Theresa. Ethan's clear that had Theresa been the one to be unfaithful, the marriage would have been over whereas; Theresa is clear that not only did she forgive Ethan his one dalliance, she would forgive him even if he cheated again. Theresa talks about Ethan just being everything for her and yet that is clearly not the case for Ethan. Ethan does truly love his wife but he doesn't actually know how much until his life is threatened and he realises that he might never see her again.
The show does a really good job of giving a good sense of the cult like nature of Wayward Pines but because the orientation meeting is missing from the book, it's not nearly as heavily developed. We don't learn heavily about the rules. The terror comes from Ethan's limited interactions with the citizens, like the ever creepy Pam and the increasingly hostile Sheriff Pope. For a time, it's Ethan who seems damaged, despite his insistence of the opposite because he is after all the one running around town claiming to be Secret Service, without any identification at all. It well could be the emotional breakdown that Jenkins suggests.
