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omair's review
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
Hunted delivers in bunches what it promises, but does it do so at the cost of having the depth to be truly memorable?
Hunted is an easy read, with short chapters that change scenes at a frantic pace. Mixed with the extremely generic world - more on this in a moment - everything feels foggy or blurry. If this is by design, as I'm choosing to believe to credit author Darcy Coates, then it meets the mood at every turn of the page. If you don't believe this to be intentional, well, then the cracks in the story will likely prove to be too great.
From the first paragraphs, Hunted really imparts a vision of a horror B-movie, something made to be straight to streaming. The character and story tropes are laid on thickand you realize there's a twist coming that you're not given enough clues to solve with certainty... well, unless you know the tropes already
One of our main POVsis a group of post-teenagers that truly had me thinking of a knock-off Scooby-Doo quartet, just Shaggy replaced with a stereotypical jock. It doesn't help that they literally get in a van that clinched the Mystery Machine feel to me.
And with that, the mystery is afoot... except that it's not really a mystery at all. Pay just a bit of attention, and you quicklybegin to expect a masked villain at play. Coates keeps the shrouded sense of it all pretty well though, and the story is never so dull that you're tempted to put it down and walk away.
But what it does lack is anything to really draw you in, to get lost amidst the details or to feel transported into its world. Nothing feels particularly vibrant or lived in. Frankly, I found myself questioning when and where the story takes place. It may as well be set in an alternate USA where they did adopt the metric system and Zuckerberg's rise stalled well into the 2010's.
In the end, I did not hate reading it, nor did I particularly enjoy it, but - most telling for me - I'm not even sure I'll remember having done so a month from now. As such, it's hard for me to recommend this to others, but maybe it'll be a guilty pleasure read for you. I finished it over the course of two nights, so could be worth for anyone wanting to sneak in a title while waiting for a hold on something else.
Hunted is an easy read, with short chapters that change scenes at a frantic pace. Mixed with the extremely generic world - more on this in a moment - everything feels foggy or blurry. If this is by design, as I'm choosing to believe to credit author Darcy Coates, then it meets the mood at every turn of the page. If you don't believe this to be intentional, well, then the cracks in the story will likely prove to be too great.
From the first paragraphs, Hunted really imparts a vision of a horror B-movie, something made to be straight to streaming. The character and story tropes are laid on thick
One of our main POVs
And with that, the mystery is afoot... except that it's not really a mystery at all. Pay just a bit of attention, and you quickly
But what it does lack is anything to really draw you in, to get lost amidst the details or to feel transported into its world. Nothing feels particularly vibrant or lived in. Frankly, I found myself questioning when and where the story takes place. It may as well be set in an alternate USA where they did adopt the metric system and Zuckerberg's rise stalled well into the 2010's.
In the end, I did not hate reading it, nor did I particularly enjoy it, but - most telling for me - I'm not even sure I'll remember having done so a month from now. As such, it's hard for me to recommend this to others, but maybe it'll be a guilty pleasure read for you. I finished it over the course of two nights, so could be worth for anyone wanting to sneak in a title while waiting for a hold on something else.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Abandonment, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Suicide, Gun violence, and Stalking
Moderate: Child death
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, Mental illness, Self harm, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Classism, Miscarriage, Vomit, Sexism, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Suicidal thoughts
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