A review by jaibee
The Hunting Party, by Lucy Foley
4.0
A rounded up 3.5.
I have a lot of issues with the book but I did whip through it apace and didn’t guess whodunnit until very near the reveal so, good for it.
Here’s my beef: I’m 31. The text explicitly states that the main character is 33. The novel came out within the last couple of years. The author is also in her early 30s. Why, then, do the characters all seem to be having a mid-life crisis and generally be acting like they are at least 15 years older??? The way they go on/the tropes definitely skew middle aged, and just...struggled to relate to these people that are supposed to be my peers? I mean. Look. These guys are very middle class (and look, if you’re going to mention that some of these characters were poor growing up at least write about that in a way other than ‘so I guess they’re jealous of the richer characters/want to emulate them’ because obviously that’s the ultimate goal of the working class) and maybe that’s how you act if you’re a middle class person in your 30s but good god, what a sad little life.
Sorry, I appear to be wearing my ‘class war’ hat again.
I also found that although the main plot ticked along and picked up pace in the second half (unlike some mysteries where it’s the last 10% if you’re lucky), the first half was full of so many ‘oo I’ve got a secret I’m so mysterious’ chapters. Sometimes you can just come out and say yo this is my shady past/I’ve done a crime and it not be Another Mystery To Be Solved, yknow?
I have a lot of issues with the book but I did whip through it apace and didn’t guess whodunnit until very near the reveal so, good for it.
Here’s my beef: I’m 31. The text explicitly states that the main character is 33. The novel came out within the last couple of years. The author is also in her early 30s. Why, then, do the characters all seem to be having a mid-life crisis and generally be acting like they are at least 15 years older??? The way they go on/the tropes definitely skew middle aged, and just...struggled to relate to these people that are supposed to be my peers? I mean. Look. These guys are very middle class (and look, if you’re going to mention that some of these characters were poor growing up at least write about that in a way other than ‘so I guess they’re jealous of the richer characters/want to emulate them’ because obviously that’s the ultimate goal of the working class) and maybe that’s how you act if you’re a middle class person in your 30s but good god, what a sad little life.
Sorry, I appear to be wearing my ‘class war’ hat again.
I also found that although the main plot ticked along and picked up pace in the second half (unlike some mysteries where it’s the last 10% if you’re lucky), the first half was full of so many ‘oo I’ve got a secret I’m so mysterious’ chapters. Sometimes you can just come out and say yo this is my shady past/I’ve done a crime and it not be Another Mystery To Be Solved, yknow?