Book Review: The Hunt

Ariane Tucker has finally escaped GTX, the research facility that created her. While on the run, Zane Bradshaw is the only person she can trust. He knows who-and what-she is and still wants to be part of her life. 

But accepting Zane's help means putting him in danger.

Dr. Jacobs, head of GTX, is not the only one hunting for Ariane. Two rival corporations have their sights set on taking down their competition. Permanently. To protect Zane and herself, Ariane needs allies. She needs the other hybrids. The hybrids who are way more alien and a lot less human. Can Ariane win them over before they turn on her? Or will she be forced to choose sides, to decide who lives and who dies?  Quoted from Goodreads

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This was surprisingly excellent for a second book in a series.  It also avoids a lot of the pitfalls and things that annoyed me in The Rules, for example all the high school drama, the mean girl, the vapid/annoying best friend, etc.  So if you read the first one and are on the fence about this second one, I definitely recommend picking it up.

Basically this book takes everything that was amazing/nail-biting at the end of The Rules and keeps going.  Ariane is on the run with Zane, and instead of just having GTX to worry about, we now get two more evil corporations looking for her, but instead of capture, their intent is to kill, and they don't care about collateral damage.  We also get, not one. Not two. But three new hybrids for Ariane to contend with, and their methods and intentions are dubious at best.  Sounds fun, right?

I actually really enjoyed this book, though I will admit it suffers a little bit from middle book syndrome. The entire thing is action packed, starting the second the first book left off and finishing with an absolutely delightful cliff-hanger.  Seriously, it made me so excited for the next book, and I'm really curious to see how the author plays with this.  Despite a pretty decent recap, you need to read the first book to really appreciate everything that's going on and the emotional burdens Ariane and Zane are carrying throughout the story.

As for Ariane and Zane, I loved them.  The book is told in dual POV, and while I found in the first book Zane's chapters were kind of boring in the beginning,  they never suffered from that in this book. In fact, it's kind of fun to see each of their thoughts on the  issues that both characters are dealing with as they grow and develop.  The romance is cute, though it did get a little bit strong at times, and I wanted to shout at both of them to focus and deal with their issues later.  Still, I actually thing the author did a great job of portraying how their situation would exacerbate so many issues and insecurities that they both carry.

All in all, this is a great second book in a series, and while it does feel like a second book, it continues all the good things and drops a lot of the bad.  It's sort of the book I think I was hoping to read in the first one, so I'm glad I kept going.  I'm going to give it a solid 3.5 stars.  It's fun, action packed, and has such a great ending, I'm dying for the third book to come out.