Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

Hunted by Darcy Coates

21 reviews

violetwillow's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Gore, Vomit, Medical trauma, and Stalking

Minor: Miscarriage

funkyartmuffins's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I picked this book up second hand for a couple bucks and I'm sure glad I did! I'm going to look for more books by this author now. It was a really fast read for me and I enjoyed it immensely! It was creepy and exciting. 

I only had a couple of small issues like:

 

Why didn't they look at the negatives? How large were these spools of string? I feel like you need a whole craft store full of string to put as much up as they did.

But it was really fun to read and those are all minor complaints! Can't wait to find more books by this author! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Child death and Pregnancy

raysofsunshine's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Okay this book was so good. Wow!! Darcy Coates is a good writer. When you discover who the killer is and Carla piecing everything together. Again so good, loved it so much. It kept me at the edge of my seat.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Blood, Vomit, and Kidnapping

omair's review against another edition

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 thick

and 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 POVs

is 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 quickly

begin 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.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Medical content, and Classism

sugarcorpse's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

An incredibly well written book with a gripping and entangling story, full of loveable and complex characters, as well as ethical questions that linger long after finishing. It was hard to put this book down at any point. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, Violence, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Mental illness and Vomit

Minor: Alcoholism

maregred's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Gore, Violence, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism

witchy_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Death, Gore, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gun violence, Miscarriage, Vomit, and Grief

Minor: Pregnancy

ahbmacgregor's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Pretty enjoyable overall! While it isn't a book that's going to win any prizes, this is still a pretty engaging read with just enough tension and mystery to keep it going. I went into it expecting something schlocky and was pleasantly surprised, and that's probably the way to do it. 

Aside from Todd (ugh), none of the character perspectives were flawed in an annoying/frustrating way, and at least Todd feels less present when more perspectives are introduced.

Honestly I was more than happy to see the end of him, even if the decomposition was particularly graphic. He drove me nuts, especially in the blase way he treated wilderness survival, and that's not even mentioning the stalkerish obsession.

The twist was guessable, but not in a way that felt obvious and more like a reward for paying attention. In some ways it felt like the final confrontations were with the wrong people/not enough people, but that wasn't enough to ruin the book. It's worth picking this up if you don't mind some horror tropes and semi-expected beats. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Miscarriage, Grief, and Stalking

Minor: Vomit

sayhar13's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Miscarriage, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

beckyremillard's review

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Eileen has gone missing while hiking by herself and the police don’t have any leads. Her brother and friends set out on their own to find her - whether she is alive or dead. 

This book varied with how much it held my attention. I got kind of bored in the middle but the ending was captivating. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Details about decaying bodies