The Hunter
In "The Hunter" by L.J. Smith, Jenny buys a mysterious boardgame from a handsome Cyberpunk and gets sucked into the Shadowworld along with her friends.
I've said it before and I'm going to say it again: L.J. Smith knows darn well what she's doing. There's a reason both her Vampire Diaries Series and The Secret Circle Series got turned into tv shows. She just writes captivatingly. This isn't the first time that I've started a novel by her and noticed that the way she develops the stories makes it impossible to quit. I've had a hard time putting this novel aside and actually trying to get my sleeping cyle back on track because I just wanted to know what this all this about. (Writing 5/5)
The novel is about Jenny and her friends, a bunch of high school students that just want to celebrate Jenny's boyfriend Tom's birthday and need a boardgame that they can play. So naturally goes ahead and walks into the next shop, not knowing that this is going to be a major mistake. The boardgame they're playing isn't really what they think it is: It's not a game. Something evil in the form of Julian, an unknown supernatural creature, is luring them all into their deaths by confronting every single one of the friends with their biggest fears. The boardgame directly sends them into a victorian-style mansion with every room containing a nightmare of one of the friends.
Therefore the novel is structured very linear, each nightmare leading to next. You can't possible lose track of the action and with every passing chapter it's very easy to know how far along you are in the novel. I love that and I'm a big fan of clear-cut straight-to-the-point literature. "The Hunter" is exactly this. While I do love the structure and the theoretical stuff in this, I am actually a bit disappointed with the specific nightmares. They're all very cliche (which is perfectly fine because I believe that humans all have generic fears that date back to ancient times) and solved way too easily. There is no "you have to face your fear in order to overcome it" like Julian so confidently threatened them with. The solutions are all just stupid and I don't see how running away or "finding the escape door" has anything to do with taking action. In order to get to the next nightmare, the friends have to simply find a way to find a door. This is just frustrating and honestly, a creature like Julian which is basically an evil version of Loki, the norse good of mischief, shouldn't really be this easily fooled. Or be this forgiving. (Plot 4/5)
Now we come to the biggest advantage and simultaneously also the biggest disadvantage of the novel: The characters. This has and will always be L.J. Smith's biggest weak spot. Let's face it: Every single one of her novels features the superstrong female protagonist that is emotional but doesn't take no shit when her family and friends are threatened. But oh, shock, there is suddenly the supersexy blue-eyed , dark kinda guy who she really shouldn't think about, but kinda does. He's a bad dude and she should stay away from him and throughout the series she will fall in love with him. So who will she choose, her nice boyfriend, who aside from being really nice, is a cardboard cutout, OR the supersexy blue-eyed hottie who will dooom her forever (but is a good kisser) ????
Haven't read the sequels (yet) but I'm going to bet you guys 50 bucks that this is exactly what's going to happen.
Even though LJ Smith justifies her insta-lovey protagonist couple with a backstory, I can't see myself ever shipping these two. Yeah, it makes sense in a way but you can't introduce a love interest with "Hello, this is me. You've never even met me really, but I've loved you since you were five. Be my wife or die." To me this is neither romantic nor interesting nor anything positive. It's flat out hilarious considering how boring Jenny is. But that's the secret to LJ's success. Cassie from TSS is like this, Elena from TVD is like this. I'm not going to lie, it's kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. The whole boring-main-character gets the ultimate Gary Stu thing works. Even with horrible side characters that are basically only there to say "no, main character, DONT YOU DARE KISS HIM DO NOT". (Characters ... probably something like 3/5)
Overall: Do I Recommend?
I love how Smith incorporates all kinds of mythology in this. I love how Julian isn't a random supernatural creature she made up, but how he is basically just all the evil in the world. It just makes so much sense to read the thoughts and speculations and see how this could work - to see how something like him could exist in reality based on all the stories that there are about dark creatures. This is essentially what will make me recommend this novel to you to a certain extent. While this is not a work of art or something memorable, it is fun. It's extremely well written, maybe cliche, but overall an insanely fun read. I'm probably going to buy the sequels just because ... yeah I'm totally enslaved to L.J Smith's novels.
Rating: ★★★★☆