Me on The Hunt

Title: The Hunt
Author: Andrew Fukuda
Release Date: May 8, 2012
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Gene is different from everyone else around him. He can't run with lightning speed, sunlight doesn't hurt, and he doesn't drink blood. He's human, and he knows the rules: don't sweat, don't laugh, don't draw attention to yourself, and don't fall in love with one of them. It's the only way to stay alive in a world filled with vampires. But when he's chosen to participate in a hunt for some of the last remaining humans, his carefully constructed life begins to crumble. He's thrust into the path of a girl who makes him feel, and into a pack of dangerous hunters. Now that there's something worth fighting for, the need to survive is stronger than ever, but is it worth the cost of his humanity?

The Hunt is dark, mysterious, and dangerous. This whole book is about survival, about staying under the radar, about hiding yourself in plain sight. One wrong move, an extra breath or a misstep, a scratch or a scent, and the vampires would be all over him. His years of hiding would be worthless.

Reading a book where every move a character makes could be his last is interesting, it makes the book rather immediate and frightening. He has to blend in with the vampires no matter what, because if he doesn't, if he twitches or gets a papercut or happens to smell, they will be all over him. It'll be a bloodbath.

There was a certain vibe or feeling I kept getting while reading this book that constantly reminded me of Heather Brewer and her The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod series, but the only thing they seem to have in common is the vampire element. Here, the book is very dark, very dangerous, very immediate and cautious. It's like the reverse of Brewer's series, instead of the vampire hiding amongst the humans it's a human hiding in the vampires. Not sure which would be more dangerous.

It's my opinion that this would be a great suggestion for teenage guys to read. There's action and danger, there's blood-thirsty monsters. There's that one perfect but unobtainable girl constantly thrown into situation with the main character so he can't avoid her unless he wants to look suspicious, but she's got her own secrets. Like everyone else does in this book.

(I received an advance copy from Raincoast Books.)