【 GO HUNT ME 】

DNF at 60%

Genre: YA Horror, Dracula retelling
Author: Kelly deVos
Published: June 2022
Publisher: Razorbill
Pages: 304 [hardback]

I tried, I really tried with this. I put this on my buy list when I heard about its release: the cover is amazing, the plot sounds so fun, and it’s a Dracula retelling!

And I had it ready to go as an audiobook, saving it up for the right moment and for after I read Dracula itself. Oh boy, I have no words for how far this fell short and how disappointed I am.

I jest, I have many words.

This was almost fun – it’s like when you’re grinning goofily at a friend, waiting to hear the punchline of their joke, but then you realise it’s not coming because there isn’t one and in fact the whole tale is kinda inappropriate. You know that feeling? Like oh… Ohhh um. Hm. *backs away slowly*

First of all, 1/10 for a retelling. Having now read Dracula I can honestly compare it to its source inspiration. Stoker’s novel is both revered by the MC as gospel and simultaneously painted as a sexist, male-centric writing that is single-handedly upholding the patriarchy. I’m okay with it being an inspired-by story, rather than actually having vampires, but it just misses the point of the original completely.

Like, woah woah, my dude. It’s not that bad. It’s a few centuries old, sure, but actually one of the main characters – Mina, who is not mentioned at all by Alex (MC of this book) in her feminist film take on the classic, which she’s making for school/college entries – is a woman who has a kick ass role to play.

So that was my first bump on the road that made me worried this wasn’t going where I thought it was. I mean, I loved Lucy too and doing a feminist retelling of Dracula with Lucy as the MC is a GOLDEN idea. But the book never really explores that concept. It’s more of a vague reference to Alex’s project (Dead Boys Don’t Bite) and as weird epigraph things at the beginning of chapters.

I could go on about this, but in sum, I thought the author was being clever by having Alex make a feminist school project but not realise how trapped in the patriarchy she was herself. Yet I lost faith fast and found this came off more as the book saying how lame it was women have to be sexy and weak to be the MC, but then be a whole book about a weak, stereotypically easily scared woman. Hmmm.

Anyway, that aside, other bug-bears: poor character writing that was exhausting quickly, with Alex pining about her boyfriend that she shamelessly goes on about dating because he’s cool and thereby she is adjacently cool. Motives of all characters was unclear. Likeability of characters (even love-to-hate ones) was non-existent.

But the thing that made me DNF was that the horror was actually….lame. Now if you know me, I don’t really do horror nor enjoy it much. But this was actually meh. Instead of making what could’ve been an epic mash of Agatha Christie-meets-Bram Stoker, this felt like the plot floundered and leant solely on graphically describing dead/dismembered bodies as the shock factor, rather than true suspense.

So after many of Alex’s panic attacks, her boyfriend saying “I won’t let anything happen to you” (or some such) an ungodly number of times, and a plot more fragile than a house of cards, I put it down.

Don’t even get me started on the inconsistencies and quality of writing…

Title: Go Hunt Me
Author: Kelly deVos
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Alex Rush is ready for the trip of a lifetime.

She and her friends have made some creepily awesome films together throughout high school, so with only a few months left before they go their separate ways for college, they’re determined to make the best one yet: an epic short film that reimagines the story of Dracula, filmed on location at a remote castle in Romania.

But when they get there, it’s not quite the majestic setting they planned for. Menacing weapons line the walls, the twisted halls are easy to get lost in, and with no connection to the outside world, the group is unexpectedly off the grid. After just a few hours spent under its roof, Alex and her friends have no trouble imagining how this dark, terrifying castle inspired one of the most enduring horror novels of all time.

Only soon they no longer have to use their imaginations to understand the location’s terrifying history—just as they get the film’s first shot rolling, one of Alex’s friends disappears, and she’s nearly certain she saw a cloaked stranger lurking in the shadows. As more members of the group begin to meet an untimely demise, Alex is desperate to stop the bloodshed, even if it means facing a monster she never thought would be let loose.