It's pretty telling that for a long time I was snatching up new Walking Dead collections as soon as they came out, but I read Vol. 17 over a year ago and didn't get around to picking this one up until now. 
 I used to think that the on-going nature of the comics which enabled it to be an endless fall into the depths of despair was one of the selling points for this series. The idea that things could always get worse and then did made it unique. I thought the format really let them explore just how hopeless a zombie apocalypse could be. 
 However, after watching the show which seems to be loop of frustration occasionally redeemed by a great episode or 'Holy shit!' moment, and the last volume which featured an incredibly brutal and graphic death of a major character, Walking Dead finally popped the fuse controlling my taste for exploring just how bad things can get. At this point the on-going nature has started to work against it for me since I saw no end to the carnage and someday it would be just the last two living people on earth fighting over a can of beans right before being eaten by zombies. 
 So this storyline featuring Negan and his group of Saviors seemed like we'd just be repeating the whole Governor/prison thing, and I wasn't that interested. However, this collection does a fair job of trying to establish Negan a bit beyond just another crazy war lord of the zombie apocalypse, and the way that Rick is working on a plan that involves other survivor communities seems like it could offer a bit of hope that the characters of Walking Dead are at long last trying to claw their way out of their daily nightmare instead of just surviving it.