Hunted Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars

“To the girl who reads by flashlight who sees dragons in the clouds who feels most alive in worlds that never were who knows magic is real who dreams

This is for you”

"Hunted", is a ”Beauty and the Beast", retelling following a girl named Yeva, who unlike her two sisters have fallen in her father's footsteps of being a skilled hunter. She would rather be outside in the forest with a bow and arrow than anywhere else, but living in the city has detoured her from doing so; until her father loses his fortune and they are forced to move to the wilderness in a run down cabin. There her father starts to lose his mind and disappears one day in the woods. Yeva is forced now to find him and also the creature he was obsessively searching for right before he disappeared.

Before I talk about my feelings on the overall book, I want to quickly discuss the love and constant revisiting of the, "Beauty and the Beast" tale. There seems to be so many authors who want to tackle this story and put a new spin on it. While I see the many reasons why, because I too think its one of the best stories written; I do think it put a pause on me wanting to read this right away. But I was pleasantly surprised by the writing and beauty of some of the scenes. I think reading this during a snowstorm added to the atmosphere of medieval Russia, a ruined castle, snowy forests, and magical creatures.

I think also that, Spooner did a great job with writing the characters in this story. She stayed true to the reasons most of us love fairy tales and wrote characters who are flawed either physically or emotionally. Yeva has this inability to fit into the world she was placed in and is confused about what she wants and why she feels so incomplete. I know many can relate to that.

The one thing I wish for this book is that it was more on an adult level and longer. There was so much potential for deeper and more flushed out moments with the beautiful setting that I would have loved to read about. This is just coming from someone who has just slightly grown out of YA books. I also thought the story resembled the Disney version a little too much in areas, but I still really enjoyed this!

“...if you’re reading this book, then you’re also that child reading by flashlight and dreaming of other worlds. Don’t be scared of her, that inner Beauty, or her dreams. Let her out. She’s you, and she’s me, and she’s magic.