Hunted - Kristin Cast

Hunted is the fifth book from the “House of Night” series that is written by Kirsten and P.C Cast. The series is continued in a 6th book “Tempted” that is due for release tomorrow (27.10.09)

Being a part in a series I will attempt in this review to only breeze over any past events hopefully without spoiling too much or giving away too many details. I apologise in advance if I fail at that aim.

Briefly to sum up, Zoey ...
...Night” school where all fledglings go to get through the 4 year transformation while learning all about Vamp life.

Zoe is an advanced fledgling and has a special connection with “Nyx” The vampire goddess of night. Because of which, Zoey has the power to control and will the 5 elements, as well as having a lot of extra responsibility as a future “high priestess” and the respect of her peers.

The series so far has followed ... more

Hunted is the fifth book from the “House of Night” series that is written by Kirsten and P.C Cast. The series is continued in a 6th book “Tempted” that is due for release tomorrow (27.10.09)

Being a part in a series I will attempt in this review to only breeze over any past events hopefully without spoiling too much or giving away too many details. I apologise in advance if I fail at that aim.

Briefly to sum up, Zoey Redbird is a vampire fledgling. She attends the “House of Night” school where all fledglings go to get through the 4 year transformation while learning all about Vamp life.

Zoe is an advanced fledgling and has a special connection with “Nyx” The vampire goddess of night. Because of which, Zoey has the power to control and will the 5 elements, as well as having a lot of extra responsibility as a future “high priestess” and the respect of her peers.

The series so far has followed Zoey through many different aspects of her new vampire life including making friends and enemies, teacher and boy troubles and of course learning about powers, evil, blood and death. Yes, pretty much Zoey’s life is far from normal and that gives a rough “what to expect” from the series.

To bring you up to date, an ancient evil has just been released which finished the 4th book and in this instalment we follow Zoey and her group of loyal friends as they hide out and try to find a way to get rid of the evil “Fallen Angel” that is controlling the school masquerading as a God while being completely obsessed with Zoey.

My Opinion
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One of my favourite things about this series is the level of detail and time we get from the stories. The whole series so far has only been over a 3 month period and each book only covers about a week at a time. This book takes place over 3 days (may even be 2 if my memory is behaving), which means we get a great deal of detail into each decision and conversation between the characters. You are there every step of the way with the characters feeling the emotions they are and getting gripped more and more after every page.

As well as helping really get stuck into the story, this way of writing also helps with the character development. We as the reader get to see how each character comes to certain decisions etc. meaning we learn more about them and understand and relate to them better, overall making the book nearly impossible to put down. It also helps keep the tension present as the story moves forward, as the whole books is basically just covering Zoey and her friends escaping the house of night, returning, then having to leave again.

As I have touched on when reviewing some previous books in this series, the writing style is very simple. The first person narration is great for keeping you in the centre of the story, as its Zoey’s perspective we read from and she is pretty much the centre of the story. Reading from a 17 year old girl’s point of view can be a little frustrating at times however, as the writers have made sure the reader is reminded of Zoey’s youth quite frequently. The use of slang and the attempt to sound “young” is a bit grating. But thankfully this comes mainly from the secondary characters that use words such as “totally” to display the fact they are actually just high school students, even though the things they are going through are far from the norm for students their age.

I quite like the fact that we are constantly aware of the fact these characters are younger and have their own troubles without impending doom on top of it all. It makes the story that little more interesting to see how Zoey has to be wise beyond her years and brave for everyone else, giving the reader a sense of respect for the character and really helping to make you want to know how they possibly get out of all the trouble they have found themselves in.

In contrast to the rest of this series I would personally say this one is one of the weaker story sections, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t completely engrossing and enjoyable. Just that a few of the others have been more so.

I wouldn’t recommend reading this book as a one off. Although some of the previous events are touched on, they aren’t really explained fully and you won’t get the full impact of the characters and some of the relationships that are formed.

As with the previous books also, they do usually come with a warning label stating that they are “not for younger readers” however, they are usually kept in the children’s fiction section of book stores (usually next to the twilight books to get more exposure I would imagine, as all these new “vamp fiction” books seem to) but they are definitely a lot more detailed and “adult” than the likes of twilight. There are parts regarding violence, sex and rape that, although not disturbing, are just that little bit more detailed then I can imagine any one under about 12 or 13 being interested in or any parents being happy with their children reading.

Overall this is a fantastic book. I managed to finish it in 2 days purely because I wanted to and didn’t want to put it down. Its extremely readable and a good part of the series. Although not the strongest part, it leads well to the next book which I am happily anticipating. The characters are kept true to the rest of the series and the events that unfold are enjoyable to read about as well as providing that great escapism that fictional books bring.

A solid 4 stars and I would certainly recommend it along with the rest of the series to anyone after something a little darker but perfectly easy going reading. (As long as you’re over 12 or so)

Thanks for reading :) 

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