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carnivalflower's review
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
annaseader's review against another edition
5.0
This book was an awesome read! I loved the twist at the end. It consistently kept me on my toes, wanting more!
kassied89's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
mountainlover81's review against another edition
5.0
Wow what a book!!!
This is my first by this author and damn she doesn’t disappoint! The book was a little slow in the beginning, but I’m so glad I stuck it out! It’s all I have been thinking about for the past two days! Any chance I got, I was reading. It was so intense… like watching a horror movie that never seemed to end!
Chris goes into this forest with some friends because his sister goes missing. The police don’t seem too concerned! What started out as a rescue mission quickly turns into an absolute nightmare! I HIGHLY recommend this book! Wow I’m actually speechless right now! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is my first by this author and damn she doesn’t disappoint! The book was a little slow in the beginning, but I’m so glad I stuck it out! It’s all I have been thinking about for the past two days! Any chance I got, I was reading. It was so intense… like watching a horror movie that never seemed to end!
Chris goes into this forest with some friends because his sister goes missing. The police don’t seem too concerned! What started out as a rescue mission quickly turns into an absolute nightmare! I HIGHLY recommend this book! Wow I’m actually speechless right now! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
cassie_grotheer's review
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
afterplague's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
What a disappointment! I have really loved the other books I’ve read from Darcy Coates, but this was a huge miss for me. I do think this was a much earlier release than the others I’ve read, so I can see that Coates has improved her craft a lot over the years. It’s interesting to see actually how her writing style and characters have changed and improved over the years.
Hunted is about Eileen, an idiotic twenty-two year old woman who goes missing in the Ashlough Forests. Why is she idiotic? Well, Eileen was looking for adventure, solo hiking in the forest when she left the path on one of the most difficult trails on the mountain. It’s rule number one when you’re hiking to stay on the marked paths because if you wander into the forest there is very little chance of you being found, dead or alive. I do think the opening scene with Eileen is pretty effective at building tension and fear, especially the idea of her using her camera to try to spot the creature that’s stalking her.
Now, I don’t know if this was a misstep on Coates behalf of if this was a problem with the way I read the story, but I have an issue with the execution of the creature. I can fully accept that this was my fault if others didn’t have this issue. I was very irritated with how long the book was asking “what could be in the woods?” I thought the creature had already been revealed to us, and I was fully willing to buy a “Bigfoot” like creature as the explanation. So, when everyone is trying to figure out if it’s a serial killer or a bear, I was becoming frustrated because we had already gotten several detailed looks at something that was described in a lot of detail.
The monster is described as being nearly seven feet tall with arms that scrape the ground, poison green eyes, matted black fur, and a face that is neither human nor animal. I thought that there was absolutely no way this could be a human or animal, but SPOILER it’s just a guy. What really threw me off was the height! The person is only six feet four inches tall, so he was wearing something that gave him EIGHT INCHES of height? My mans was walking around the forest in his Louboutins. I can buy the rest. It’s not that hard to make a fursuit.
I didn’t really like or connect to any of the characters. Todd gets several point of view chapters and he’s incredibly annoying. He’s a smug, narcissistic Reddit incel who is in love with Eileen and has delusions that he’ll save her and they’ll get together. I didn’t care about him in the slightest. Obviously, he’s meant to be kind of annoying, but he didn’t really have anything for me to latch onto. He’s also an idiot who leaves the trail. The detective lady (Carmen?) was just the worst, too. She seemed so irritated at having to do her job and try to find Eileen, but I guess that is a pretty realistic portrayal of a cop. Reading her perspective was so dull, and I didn’t really care about any of the personal details given to flesh out her life. I guess she becomes more bearable as she actually starts to care about her job, so character development.
The “rescue squad” was also pretty bleh. Chris was not making intelligent decisions regarding his team, but he was searching for his sister so I’m not going to give him too much flak. Frankie? I can’t remember any of these characters names. I think he could’ve been a much more interesting character than he was, but I think the way things went for his arc were weird and unresolved. I can chalk it up to head trauma. Haley was actually a great character who I did end up liking. She was tough and smart when it counted, and she really ended up shining in a book that was fairly dull. I can’t even remember the name of the last girl, Anna? I liked her, too. I think it was good to have someone on the team who was actually prepared, but I can’t believe she didn’t pack something like a GPS or a SAT phone. Come on.
I understand that horror books wouldn’t exist if characters made smart decisions all the time, but the amount of blatant disregard for their own safety made this an extremely frustrating read. Again, I know it’s part of the genre, but there’s a difference between opening the ancient tome in the shady basement and drinking a bottle of clearly labeled rat poison. The decisions these characters made often felt more like the latter.
I do think the villain had interesting motives and method, but I don’t think the slog to get to that interesting end was worth it. I was extremely bored for a lot of the book, and I kept having to switch between reading and watching a YouTube video to get my brain engaged. The writing was fairly dull and repetitive. The monster was described as having “poison green eyes” SO many times. The forest was an atmospheric setting, but it was quite repetitive as well.
I just wouldn’t recommend this one. Coates has written better books, and I would recommend you read From Below or Dead of Winter instead. A miss for me.
Hunted is about Eileen, an idiotic twenty-two year old woman who goes missing in the Ashlough Forests. Why is she idiotic? Well, Eileen was looking for adventure, solo hiking in the forest when she left the path on one of the most difficult trails on the mountain. It’s rule number one when you’re hiking to stay on the marked paths because if you wander into the forest there is very little chance of you being found, dead or alive. I do think the opening scene with Eileen is pretty effective at building tension and fear, especially the idea of her using her camera to try to spot the creature that’s stalking her.
Now, I don’t know if this was a misstep on Coates behalf of if this was a problem with the way I read the story, but I have an issue with the execution of the creature. I can fully accept that this was my fault if others didn’t have this issue. I was very irritated with how long the book was asking “what could be in the woods?” I thought the creature had already been revealed to us, and I was fully willing to buy a “Bigfoot” like creature as the explanation. So, when everyone is trying to figure out if it’s a serial killer or a bear, I was becoming frustrated because we had already gotten several detailed looks at something that was described in a lot of detail.
The monster is described as being nearly seven feet tall with arms that scrape the ground, poison green eyes, matted black fur, and a face that is neither human nor animal. I thought that there was absolutely no way this could be a human or animal, but SPOILER it’s just a guy. What really threw me off was the height! The person is only six feet four inches tall, so he was wearing something that gave him EIGHT INCHES of height? My mans was walking around the forest in his Louboutins. I can buy the rest. It’s not that hard to make a fursuit.
I didn’t really like or connect to any of the characters. Todd gets several point of view chapters and he’s incredibly annoying. He’s a smug, narcissistic Reddit incel who is in love with Eileen and has delusions that he’ll save her and they’ll get together. I didn’t care about him in the slightest. Obviously, he’s meant to be kind of annoying, but he didn’t really have anything for me to latch onto. He’s also an idiot who leaves the trail. The detective lady (Carmen?) was just the worst, too. She seemed so irritated at having to do her job and try to find Eileen, but I guess that is a pretty realistic portrayal of a cop. Reading her perspective was so dull, and I didn’t really care about any of the personal details given to flesh out her life. I guess she becomes more bearable as she actually starts to care about her job, so character development.
The “rescue squad” was also pretty bleh. Chris was not making intelligent decisions regarding his team, but he was searching for his sister so I’m not going to give him too much flak. Frankie? I can’t remember any of these characters names. I think he could’ve been a much more interesting character than he was, but I think the way things went for his arc were weird and unresolved. I can chalk it up to head trauma. Haley was actually a great character who I did end up liking. She was tough and smart when it counted, and she really ended up shining in a book that was fairly dull. I can’t even remember the name of the last girl, Anna? I liked her, too. I think it was good to have someone on the team who was actually prepared, but I can’t believe she didn’t pack something like a GPS or a SAT phone. Come on.
I understand that horror books wouldn’t exist if characters made smart decisions all the time, but the amount of blatant disregard for their own safety made this an extremely frustrating read. Again, I know it’s part of the genre, but there’s a difference between opening the ancient tome in the shady basement and drinking a bottle of clearly labeled rat poison. The decisions these characters made often felt more like the latter.
I do think the villain had interesting motives and method, but I don’t think the slog to get to that interesting end was worth it. I was extremely bored for a lot of the book, and I kept having to switch between reading and watching a YouTube video to get my brain engaged. The writing was fairly dull and repetitive. The monster was described as having “poison green eyes” SO many times. The forest was an atmospheric setting, but it was quite repetitive as well.
I just wouldn’t recommend this one. Coates has written better books, and I would recommend you read From Below or Dead of Winter instead. A miss for me.
id173's review against another edition
3.0
I am a huge fan of Darcy Coates and I could tell Hunted was going to be a departure from her usual stuff so I was excited to read this but it ended up not hitting all the marks for me.
Some pros:
- no one was safe and I loved the unpredictability that brought
- the woodsy setting (it's what initially attracted me to it because I love missing411-type stuff)
- the twist that I didn't see coming
- the intensity (it contained a much higher degree than I first expected)
Some cons:
- one of the characters (here's looking at you, Todd) was a completely insufferable and immature mess and the others were irritatingly stupid in their decision-making
- the "horror" itself seemed to revolve around surviving, which, for me, elicits a different and uninspired emotional response from regular paranormal horror (in the end, I decided that survival horror isn't for me)
- the inconsistency of tone. What I mean by this is in the chapters focusing on the group and (especially) Todd, the tone seemed more of a YA style but switched in all the other chapters involving Carla (I have to mention I am not at all a fan of YA a style)
- the ending (while it was a twist I didn't see coming, it somehow still fell flat for me)
Some pros:
- no one was safe and I loved the unpredictability that brought
- the woodsy setting (it's what initially attracted me to it because I love missing411-type stuff)
- the twist that I didn't see coming
- the intensity (it contained a much higher degree than I first expected)
Some cons:
- one of the characters (here's looking at you, Todd) was a completely insufferable and immature mess and the others were irritatingly stupid in their decision-making
- the "horror" itself seemed to revolve around surviving, which, for me, elicits a different and uninspired emotional response from regular paranormal horror (in the end, I decided that survival horror isn't for me)
- the inconsistency of tone. What I mean by this is in the chapters focusing on the group and (especially) Todd, the tone seemed more of a YA style but switched in all the other chapters involving Carla (I have to mention I am not at all a fan of YA a style)
- the ending (while it was a twist I didn't see coming, it somehow still fell flat for me)
trexbaby134's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0