Monday, June 30, 2014

The Hunt Series by Andrew Fukuda

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?


I had such high hopes for this book series.  The praise it got from fans and other authors alike made me really want to enjoy this story.  And I don’t know what happened, but I just didn’t connect with this character at all.

Gene is a human living in a vampire world.  He is constantly hiding and living in shame of what he is.  Enter the hunt:  a select lucky few of the population are chosen to get to eat ‘real people’ (aka hepers) and all of it is televised to improve population morale.  Surprise!  Gene gets chosen and his charade is pretty much up.  How can one heper live under such scrutiny and not be exposed?  Honestly I don’t know.  This book portrays vampires as complete morons.  At home Gene can supposedly wash the heper scent off himself but at the hunt lodging he isn’t given so much as a toothbrush and after a few days he begins to smell, BAD.  But of course he convinces everyone around him that they are just psyching themselves out and they don’t actually smell anything.  AND EVERYONE BUYS IT.

So obviously he doesn’t get exposed until the hunt is right about to happen and he must flee.  But his escape plan backfires and he barely makes it out of the city with his life.  He meets some other hepers along the way and they go on crazy adventures until things run too smoothly.  Then:  plot twist!!  Suddenly our main characters have to do the right thing and completely ruin their chance of survival.  (Maybe that’s why humans are endangered in this universe – they run TOWARD the blood-sucking monsters)

Now I really wanted to like this book but there were two major problems that I just couldn’t overlook.
One:  Gene is really whiny and only has a one-track mind.  He can’t piece together anything and that makes reading from his point of view confusing and slow.  By the time he figures out what’s happening it’s literally about to happen.  For some people that creates a lot of suspense and action-filled cliffhangers, but for me it was just annoying.  Of course he could never think of a good plan, he would have to know something in advance, which apparently is too much to ask from our main character.

Two:  Nothing was ever explained about the vampires and how they live.  I only assume they have families and houses because neighborhoods are alluded to.  I know they have relationships because weird vampire ‘sex’ was explained in GREAT detail. (Because I really wanted to know about that…gross)  After reading three books about these people I still only know the basics:  they melt the sun, they drink blood and their favorite thing to eat is hepers.

I really wish those issues had been flushed out more, maybe I would have gotten a bit more out of the series.  Overall there was a good story in there, you just can’t pay attention to the details or you’ll lose the momentum of the story and then it’s all over.

3 stars

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