Book Review #73: The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Hey Guys x

I've already reviewed another of Foley's books, 'The Guest List', which you can read HERE. But based on how much I absolutely loved that book, I couldn't wait to read this one.

A group of old friends get together to spend New Years in the remote Scottish Wilderness. But soon, the group discover that they no longer have anything in common. As tensions grow, friendships break down, and secrets are revealed, things feel like they couldn't get any worse.
Until a body is discovered.

I really wanted to love this book. Based on the description, it sounded exactly like 'The Guest List'. And while I didn't want to read a repeat of the same book, I was fine with it because I liked the concept.

And while I did like the concept, I didn't really enjoy the book that much. I'm really going to try not to spoil it, but I feel like one or two of my criticisms might give a bit of a clue. But I'll try to be as vague as possible.

For a start, it took me a really long time to get into.

One reason for this was that there were so many different characters, who we only knew because at the beginning of the book all of their names were thrown at us without descriptions. It took me such a long time to work out who each character was that for the first part of the book, I wasn't even interested in the story itself.

I also found the way that the book was written a bit jarring. Most of the book was written in the same way as 'The Guest List', where it was just a story being told. But there were also some occasional parts where the protagonist was speaking directly to the reader. But because it happened so occasionally (like once every 10 chapters or something) it just felt really weird to me.

The beginning of the book doesn't tease enough of the story to keep the reader interested, in my opinion. It takes a really long time, if ever, to care about these characters. And while this story is plot rather than character driven, you have to care about these characters to care about this story.

Some parts of the book just felt bit unrealistic. The story is very much rooted in reality, and even with the murder, nothing seems that far fetched. So it's crazy that the thing that took me out of the story was the fact that one couple kept leaving their baby alone in a cabin with just a baby monitor while they partied with their friends. And what's more, the thing that really surprised me was that the other characters in the book (one in particular) was not only unsurprised by this, but was actually annoyed that they didn't leave their baby alone more often! It just made no sense, I really struggled with it.

Because of the way that the book is set up, your options for the murdered and murderer are really narrow. What I mean by that is that, while there are at least 11 characters in the story, we only see the story from the point of view of about 5. And the characters that we don't hear from, we actually don't find out much about them at all. So if there are only 5 that we know well, it makes the story much more narrow.

Speaking of not knowing much about the other characters, I found this in particular with the male characters. None of them have a significant personality beyond one adjective (whether that be 'volatile', 'gay', 'junkie' etc.) and I really felt that the story would have benefited from giving these characters personalities, and letting us know a bit more about them. Not only could I not feel a connection to these characters, but in terms of the murder, it didn't matter to me whether they were the murder, the murdered or neither.

The thing I felt most disappointed by in the book was the fact that I guessed the ending from less than a third of the way through the book. There were some things that, to me, felt so obvious that I thought they couldn't possibly be true. This made the final reveal much less impactful. But more than that, they made reading the entire book feel like I was just going through the motions to get to the ending, rather than going on a journey with these characters.

What was good?
When I got to the last 100 or so pages, I couldn't put the book down. Even though I was fairly sure of how it was going to end, I still didn't put it down, which is a testament to the story. I just had to know all the secrets, I had to understand why everything happened.

What was bad?
In 'The Guest List' (which I can't help but compare this to), I felt like the distance between the reader and the characters was great. But in this book, it didn't work for me. I think the distance was too far - I didn't know these characters, I didn't care about them, and therefore I found it hard to care about the story.

Overall
It's a pretty good murder mystery if you don't guess the ending, but it wasn't one that I'll read again.

2/5 Stars

Lou