The Hunt Hardcover – Bargain Price, May 8, 2012

In a futuristic dystopia, where vampires (the murderous, non-sparkly kind!) have completely taken over and replaced the human race, 17 year old Gene is trying to blend in. Simply staying alive is a constant struggle, as if the vamps were to find out that he is human, he would be devoured in seconds. But every decade, a hunt is to take place. A random selection of vampires are to be taken to the heper (their word for human) institute, where they will learn to hunt down the last remaining hepers. When Gene is chosen to compete, he is at a loss of what to do. But there is one thing he does know: Do not fall in love withe one of them.**********************************I found this book very entertaining, if not a little strange. But who doesn't love a nice, original idea?The protagonist, Gene, was like-able enough. It would have been nice if he wasn't so detached from other characters. I never really liked the main love-interest, Ashley-June. She appeared quite arrogant and conceited. Darn, I really wish I could tell you who I do like, but it is a big spoiler! What really made the book funny and interesting for me was the unique and comical mannerisms that the Vampires possess. What I find annoying in the masses of other YA Vampire novels is that they portray vampires as the same species as humans, except their lust for blood and their amplified skills. Andrew Fukuda went the extra step ahead and made the Vampires an actual different species than humans! For example, instead of laughing, they just scratch their wrists! Its fun to imagine it; Picture your friend telling a joke, and instead of giggling, your friends just scratch their wrists with straight faces! Wow, it just cracks me up every time. They even drool (like, non-stop, leaky faucet type drool) like crazy when they get excited! Do you even want to know the down-right freaky things that they do to substitute for kissing?I know that I gave this book a pretty low ranking, but that is primarily because of Gene's detachment from other characters, and my general dislike for the female protagonist, Ashley-June. But I can tell you this, its not a boring, simple read. No, you actually have to give this book your full attention, and it will have you at the end of your seats! This book is extremely suspenseful, and since he could be exposed as a human at any moment, it means that you can never quite relax. You will be turning pages like a storm!I actually do encourage you to read this book, and despite my criticisms, I guarantee that you wont be disappointed.Visit my new book review blog!: Midnight Reads YA Fiction Reviews : [...]

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 Review:WOW...Where do I start with this one? I have been told over and over I needed to read it but for some reason it just continued to sit on my shelf....hmm..BIG mistake. I began this book on the 2nd to last day of the year and finished it on January 1. So this book will go in my FAVORITES for 2012 & 2013!!!!I LOVED this book from the first pages. If you loved The Hunger Games and also love vampires then this is a MUST read. It is such a totally different book than anything I have ever read. I usually like to read books from a female point of view but I adapted to Gene so quickly it was really effortless. His character has such a deep will to survive and you cant help but "root" for him. I love the twists and turns in the story as well. I wont give anything away but I can say that at one point I was shocked...I did NOT see a character appearing that I should have from the get go! WOW! The book is written as if vampires are the leaders of the world and "hepers" also known as humans are the prey. There are very few hepers in existence and those that are are placed into a "Hunt" once every ten or so years to engage the vampire population and raise popularity for their Ruler. I loved the hepers instantly and began to root for them as well as Gene....All I can say is that you MUST read this for yourself. I turned pages well into the night...I literally could not put it down...ACTION PACKED but some parts do get a little squeamish...I mean we are dealing with VAMPIRES here!! ALL in all 5 stars for this one! and I literally cannot wait till January 31st when The Prey comes out!!!!

Gene is hiding in the hornet's nest. He is a human, known as a Heper, but has become so conditioned into hiding amongst the creatures who hunt him that he no longer appears as a Heper, thinks of himself as one and has in fact managed to convince everyone around him (all of which are not Hepers) that he is one of them: flesh eating, sunshine avoiding monsters. Hiding sweat, body hair, facial reactions, sneezes or God forbid, a cough, Gene has lost everything about himself in an effort to just stay alive and he might be just about to get caught!This book genuinely captivated me from start to finish and I really enjoyed the writing style. I was anxiously awaiting a moment when Gene might slip up and be ripped into tiny little Heper pieces. I'm not often exciting by "vampire" books - but this isn't that. In fact Fukuda doesn't once use that descriptor, despite his blood-thirsty, pointed-toothed characters and bat-like sleeping arrangements. And that might make it sound like any old vampire book, but there are some unique additions to this story which make it stand out from the crowd - not least of all the excessive dribbling and odd flirting techniques (which led to fits of giggles for me occasionally, despite the scary characters). I just think this book does something uniquely....weird? which other books haven't yet. And I liked that a lot. Somehow the quirky nature of the unnamed creatures makes them all the more sinister.The concept of the book is exciting, although not that original - a random selection of lucky (I'll say vampires for ease) vampires have been selected to enter the Hunt. A competition in which the group will train together to eventually be released to hunt down a group of Hepers - an insatiable treat of unimaginable reward for these hungry salivating beasts. Unless of course you're Gene, hiding in the very group who would love to eat you, and trying desperately not to break a sweat and get rumbled.The problem is: very little explanation of HOW this world came to be filled with these creatures and why there are basically no humans left is very poorly explored. That's an exaggeration actually - it's just not explored, period. Usually this would really irritate me, but the plot is so far fetched already and genuinely excited me enough to distract me from the holes. There's no two ways about it though, this is most definitely a very holey piece of Swiss Cheese.Despite the gaping holes in this book I just couldn't help but love it. There's something gripping about not knowing when the act will be up, what Gene might have to do to avoid being discovered, and most of all seeing his mishaps unravel. There's an unusual but striking balance here between humour and menace, and that's something not to be missed. I'm excited to see what happens next.

When I selected a Kindle sample of this novel, I didn't immediately realise it was by the same author as Crossing. Once I did, I knew I was in pretty safe hands. Crossing was a very well written book - enjoyable but not exactly a page-turner. The Hunt, on the other hand is.I'll say from the outset, that if you go into this expecting another Hunger Games or Twilight series, you'll probably be disappointed. Does that mean it's not as good as those books? Well, in my view, while it's not quite up to The Hunger Games or Twilight, it's not far short. If they didn't exist, this book would probably get much greater kudos. I actually rather disagree with people who say it's a rip off of Twilight or The Hunger Games. Of course, any YA vampire book that gets written from now to who-knows-when is going to be held up against the Twilight series. This, however, is far darker. The vampires in this novel are never specifically referred to as such - they're simply called 'people'. Humans, on the other hand, are now in a minority and known as 'hepers'. A nice twist - leaving humans having to conceal their true identity and integrate, hiding among the enemy - the very creatures that would rip them to bits and eat them, given half the chance. Which is what we find Gene, a high school student having to do. Until he's tossed deeper into the hornets' nest when he wins a place in the hunt - an opportunity for seven lucky contestants to hunt down and feast on a handful of hepers who are in captivity at the Heper Institute.The comparison to the Hunger Games is, possibly, because Gene and a classmate, Ashley June (a vampire for whom he feels a certain, reluctant attraction) are whisked off to the institute where they're sort of wined and dined. However, to claim that this book is a barely-concealed version of The Hunger Games is a disservice to the author. The Hunger Games pitched human against human and followed the training of the competitors and their travails during the games. Nothing like that happens here. Plus, some pretty nifty plot twists are thrown in for good measure.Yes, there are certain plot holes - and, yes, there are other things that couldn't really be believable (if this were for real) e.g. how Gene has actually managed to survive for 17 years without accidentally blushing, sweating, shivering, showing emotion, shedding a teeny drop of blood. Also, how he did manage at the Institute without his fang-whitener etc. But, hey, for good writing and a pretty pacy plot, I'm prepared to suspend my disbelief a little.If you're someone who likes everything tied up in the end, be warned - this book is of a 'to be continued variety'. All well and good if you enjoyed it, but probably yet another irritant if you didn't. You'll get to the end having not liked the book and also not discovering how it all ended!For my part, I actually found this book really good fun - well written, page-turning, enjoyable escapism. And as I finished it, I immediately ordered the second in the series.

I really enjoyed this. The story was fresh and new, but I'm not going to re-tell it here. I will say that yes, some things stretch belief a little, but some of the accusations I've seen made by other reviewers seem miss the point. Why would human-detection devices be in use if they believe humans are extinct? This belief probably also allows little flaws in disguises to go unnoticed.Gene's attitude to the dome hepers is understandable to me, because he grew up saturated with one world view. I feel the book actually shows very well how racism (and internalised racism) defies logic. The totalitarian world presented has one world view that no one questions, and it affects how you think. Of course it does! "Normal" human behaviours seem alien and disgusting (and I felt that was portrayed well), even to humans, when all you're surrounded with is messages that they *are* disgusting.I also loved that we're not faced with pages of exposition backstory. We (so far seem to) find out *real* history, the kind not taught in school, along with the protagonist. This first book begins this by showing him his view of the world is woefully incomplete, and the blurbs of the next two books indicate there's a lot more to come. I'm looking forward to reading them!

Vampires are everywhere these days. Vampires make good fiction, as they are not straightforward monsters - even in the days of Bram Stoker's prototype soul-stealer, the vampire was an ambiguous figure, and in its 21st century incarnation a vampire can be evil, it can be good, it can be a dark, Satanic lover, or even a comedy turn. Andrew Fukuda's THE HUNT (the first in a vampire series for young adults) gives us vampires as a majority, the rulers of a dystopian world in which humans (hepers in this world) are food animals, close to extinction. A small number of humans are bred by the rulers of this dystopian world to be used in hunts organised to appease a potentially restive vampire populace. A few - a very small number - of humans survive, hiding in plain sight among the vampires, pretending to be vampires and facing discovery and annihilation every day.THE HUNT follows the life of one such human. The male hero (nameless for much of the book) lives alone. The other members of his family succumbed to the vampires years ago, the last one being his father, who was attacked seven years before the book opens. His father told him the rules of survival again and again: don't look back, don't smile, don't flinch. And always: don't forget who you are.This vampire world is a familiar dystopian construction. It is the world of Orwell's 1984, Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD, some of the worlds of H G Well's THE TIME MACHINE. Conformity is the key to survival. Individuality is not prized. Fukuda's dystopia is not original, but he has created a bleak world, and much of it is convincing.The hero's loneliness and isolation is well-depicted, as is the cruel and dangerous society he lives in. He not only does not know his name, he doesn't know what an individual name is. Towards the end, a flash of memory reveals this. His name is Gene. As any beleaguered hero in any dystopia, Gene must hold on to his human spirit.It is not a problem that these are not traditional vampires, but Fukuda does not succeed in making this particular vampire world fully convincing. The vampires appear to age, they have children, they build cities with financial districts, government buildings and even poultry farms. The hero attends what is, more or less, a typical high school, with a few vampiric embellishments. There are also moments of unintentional humour (a sexual encounter involving armpits looms large here). The inconsistencies work against the narrative - it is a writer's job to make the suspension of disbelief possible, and Fukuda does not always achieve this.The plot centres round a heper hunt (the hunt of the title). Hepers are not entirely extinct, the vampires are told, and a selected, small number of vampires will have the privilege of hunting them. The hero, unsurprisingly, is among the chosen, along with a beautiful vampire classmate who has shown an interest in him (hence the armpit episode). This makes the possibility of exposure even greater, and after a slow start, there is real tension as the story develops and the heper hunt starts.In this audio version, Sean Runette does not attempt to replicate the limited emotions of the vampire world. The character whose voice we hear, the hero, is human, and Runette makes him fully so. He brings out the isolation and the suppressed grief of the hero that is appropriate for this dark world. Runette depicts the different characters with some subtlety, and does not force the tension or the pace. A slight problem is that the book is a first person narrative, and Runette does not sound like a teenage boy. He sounds like an adult, which gives the feel of someone telling a story that is already past. As the book gains a lot of its immediacy from the use of the present tense, this can be a distraction.THE HUNT does lend itself to the tag TWILIGHT meets THE HUNGER GAMES. There is little here that is original, but the narrative is mostly gripping, and the hero is engaging. His fight to maintain his humanity in a world where human values are decried, are even a source of shame and may lead to his death, adds some depth to what would otherwise be just another vampire thriller.

The Hunt is a real page turner. Its got dystopian characteristics, the world dominated by vampires who think themselves as the top of the food chain, the lonely protagonist who hides a big secret, the "outside" world where the protagonist flees after a big event that forces him out of society....The plot is centered around a hunt that takes place every 10 years, where vampires hunt the almost extinct humans, or hepers as they call them, referring to them as nothing more than a tasty mammal. The plot is fast paced and has the feel of a thriller to it, reminding me of the Forest of Hands and Teeth. There are minor gap holes, but in my view they do not diminish at all the gripping lure of the story. I already downloaded The Prey, book two and luckily book 3 The Trap is coming out in a few days!! Can;t wait!