Review of The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda
Against all odds,
17-year-old Gene has survived in a world where humans have been eaten to
near extinction by the general population. The only remaining humans,
or Hepers as they are known, are housed in domes on the savannah and
studied at the nearby Heper Institute. Every decade there is a
government sponsored hunt. When Gene is selected to be one of the
combatants he must learn the art of the hunt but also elude his fellow
competitors whose suspicions about his true nature are growing.
Ah, The Hunt. A book described best by Xpresso Reads as, 'Where's the World Building?!' And mentioned by other users as having wrist scratching, daily shaving and armpit sex. Yes, armpit sex. It couldn't be clearer that the author was trying a little too hard to make the Vampires different from humans. The Hunt also throws up far too many questions - why do they scratch their wrists when they find something funny? Why doesn't Gene just find a why to become one of them? How did the Vampires take over the world in the first place?
A lack of world building, stupid characters, stupider scenes, you've probably picked up by now that I hated this book. Except, wait, I didn't! I absolutely loved it. Sure, it was sillier than Matt Smith's fez and madder than a box of rage infested zombies but it was so bad, it was good. There is actually a fairly decent plot here, if you er, overlook a lot of things. The other Vampires in the running for the Hunt add a lot of tension and for weird reason, I actually quite liked Gene, although not as much as Sissy and Ashley June, who were much stronger characters.
I have to hand it to Gene, spending his whole life not sweating, smiling, coughing, laughing, is... just downright unbelievable which makes me fully believe that the next plot twist in the sequel will be that he's actually a robot, programmed by some renegade humans to scout out the Vampire town. Sounds cheesy enough for this book, eh? He's pretty stupid, when he first met the 'Hepers' he genuinely thought they would be brainless and rather like cattle, an assumption that makes no sense considering he's one of them.
The last quarter of the book was a lot of fun and the events that happened certainly make me want to read the next book. I was thinking about this story long after I finished it and I may have even dreamed about it too. I have to give it 4 stars because that's the only rating that fits, I certainly didn't hate it and it didn't bore me but there could have been some improvements to the story.
4/5