The Hunt Reveiw

The Hunt
by Andrew Fukuda
Expected Publication: 05.08.12
From Goodreads:

 Don’t Sweat. Don’t Laugh. Don’t draw attention to yourself. And most of all, whatever you do, do not fall in love with one of them.

Gene is different from everyone else around him. He can’t run with lightning speed, sunlight doesn’t hurt him and he doesn’t have an unquenchable lust for blood. Gene is a human, and he knows the rules. Keep the truth a secret. It’s the only way to stay alive in a world of night—a world where humans are considered a delicacy and hunted for their blood.

When he’s chosen for a once in a lifetime opportunity to hunt the last remaining humans, Gene’s carefully constructed life begins to crumble around him. He’s thrust into the path of a girl who makes him feel things he never thought possible—and into a ruthless pack of hunters whose suspicions about his true nature are growing. Now that Gene has finally found something worth fighting for, his need to survive is stronger than ever—but is it worth the cost of his humanity?

My Thoughts:  When I received this book in the mail, the blogger warned me that it was an intense read, and it is! I was tense pretty much the whole time, waiting for Gene to slip and get eaten by a bunch of crazed vampires, well vampire like creatures.

Because the vampires in these books?  They don't have Edward Cullen's amazing skills at non-human-snacking.

In The Hunt, humans are referred to as hepers, although I'm not sure why.  When I tried to Google the word hepers all I got was links to sites about herpes, so that didn't help.  Anyway, hepers have pretty much been driven to extinction by vampires, who really just consider themselves people.  Hepers are to vampires what cavemen are to us, a link in the evolutionary chain but not as advanced as we are.  Of course, despite the fact that I find the caveman on Geico amusing, I'd never eat him.

Unless he was wrapped in bacon... Everything tastes better with bacon.

So Gene is human, passing himself off as vampire.  This entails a lot of shaving and keeping clean.  He adapts himself to the vampire's lifestyle, sleeping during the day and mimicking their behaviors.  And that was where the book had me.  Being afraid to sweat because your classmates might devour you like the last slice of cheesecake in the Golden Girl's house would probably drive me crazy.  Thinking that I was the last person on earth wouldn't give me much reason to live, but then again, Gene's just going through the motions. I don't know that he's thinking much of the future.

Then the government announces that the last 5 hepers on earth will be available to hunt for a lucky few lottery winners.  Gene figures he has no chance of being picked, but of course he is and further problems ensue with his difficulty hiding the fact that he's human.

I really enjoyed this book, but it's not without some problems.  I couldn't figure out how large the vampire community was, and I kept expecting to hear more about how humans have been hunted to practical extinction, but so far my questions are unanswered.  This isn't terribly bad since it seems that this is the first in a series.  Although there is a question that I have about female hepers trying to pass as humans, how could they possibly do that when Aunt Flo came to town?  I can't be the only person that thinks of these things... right?

Like a lot of other dystopian novels out there, it's a little sketchy on details.  I get it though, it's hard to create an alternate world.  How much information is too much and just bogs down a story?  On the other hand, this book could have used a little more filler.  And again, I'm a little tired of books where the main character is described as brilliant but actually shows nothing to prove it.  But since it's YA, I'll give it some slack.  The YA books from my own teen years are almost painfully shallow upon reflection (except for my man, Christopher Pike).

Overall, The Hunt was my kind of book.  I cringed when Gene was close to being discovered and I worried about him.  When I finished this book I wanted more.  Plus, it's always nice to see a male YA author, writing about old fashion vampires.  I love the sparkly ones, but I also like the really old school killer vamps.

The Hunt gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

 It's almost a 3 1/2, but I felt the fact that I told my husband about it, describing the tension, that it does deserve that extra 1/2 rating.  It's easy to forget how on edge I was while reading this book, but that's why I try to take notes so that I can be fair to the book.  And I will definitely pick up the next book in case there's a sequel. 

This is the cover that came with my ARC and I really liked it, despite the fact that most of the action takes place near the desert.  It does give the feel of being hunted on it.  I'm not going to rate it simply because I don't know if it's the final picture.  But I'd probably give this one at least a 3 on the scale, maybe 3.5.  Okay, 3.5 because I realize it kind of looks like an 1990's updated cover, like for Christopher Pike's Spellbound. ;)

The cover that I found on Goodreads is pretty awesome, and I think I might like that better, there's more a sense of urgency.

Hmm, am I becoming book cover obsessed?