Saturday, May 21, 2016

The Hunt

by Andrew Fukuda

Story summary: He is a lone human in a society run by vampires. Barely managing to escape notice (and a gory death) through a series of rigorous personal rules, he lives a quiet, lonely life without love or friendship. Until the worst happens, and he's thrown into the spotlight of the event of the century... a human hunt.

Why You Will Like This Book:
  • Everything's inverted! It's the vampires that are just called "people" while humans are strange creatures hunted for their blood!
  • It's gripping! How's our protagonist going to survive when every time he sweats or bleed or shows any emotion whatsoever, he will be ripped to shreds and eaten?

And Why You Might Not:
  • It's a pretty standard YA dystopian. Other than the central twist, there's not really anything new or exciting.
  • I found the characters pretty uninteresting.




Thoughts: YA Dystopian is just not the genre I'm looking for right now. There was too little substance in this book for me to enjoy it much at all.

The best aspect by far was the uniqueness of the premise. Which was, admittedly, quite fun. But even for this, I was hoping it would go into how it all worked--the differences between vampires and humans at a deeper level, why the vampires have the strange characteristics they do. And I wish sometimes it was a bit more realistic. It really didn't seem like they could have lasted that long without sweating or bleeding or anything. (Someone in a review pointed out girls and their menstrual cycles--the vampires would kill them instantly.) And the fact that Gene would happen to designate Ashley June by such a normal sounding name?

(I think what I was actually hoping for was a book a little like those of C.J. Cherryh. I have not actually read her yet, but I've been reading a lot about her works, and they're high up in my TBR list. Her focus seems to be sociological scifi, with extremely realistic contrast between alien and human cultures.)

Grade: 2 1/2 stars (basically 2 stars, but an extra 1/2 star because having everything switched around was pretty fun)

If You Like This, You Might Also Like:
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: Pretty much the ultimate YA dystopian, and one of the most gripping books I've read. But it seems a little too unlikely to me that you've read The Hunt and not read The Hunger Games, so let's go with a little less well known one:
  • The Maze Runner by James Dashner: This YA dystopian reminds me of the style of The Hunt a bit, with the not-particularly-interesting male protagonist focused solely on surviving and a girl, and with more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. But it's still more well known than The Hunt, what with the new movie and all, so let's do one more recommendation:
  • Gone by Michael Grant: Some differences, such as focusing on many different characters as opposed to one, but it's a still about young people's survival in a dystopian-like setting. Also very gripping--I would recommend it if you're not overly squeamish.

No comments: