Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill

This is going to be a difficult review to write, because I knew about twenty pages in that I probably wasn't going to enjoy this book. Ordinarily, I would DNF - but by that point I had already added it to Goodreads, and people were asking me for my thoughts; and since this is a book so many people were looking forward to, myself included, I feel obligated to share my thoughts.

First, EVER THE HUNTED is nothing new. It's a generic YA teen girl fantasy novel, with a wallpaper background that hints at conflict and magic without really expanding on the world much at all. The bulk of the novel is about the heroine's love-angst with her childhood friend, and whether or not he loves her back and, oh, yeah, whether or not he actually murdered her father.

Our heroine's name is Britta. She is the daughter of a bounty hunter and supposed to be good with the bow and an excellent huntress, but the only thing she does with any skill in this book is whine and get into trouble. She has the ability to detect whether or not someone is lying or telling the truth, which feel - I kid you not - either cold or hot in her stomach because...magic, I guess. She also has another ability that you'll learn about later, in addition to her hunting skills, which is super rare.

Britta is your typical willowy, freckled, blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty who doesn't think she's beautiful. I'm going to be honest, though. For most of the book, I was picturing her looking like this:

Another problem this book has is consistency. Sometimes the writing will feel old-fashioned, like classical Medieval-Europe type fantasy. Other types, the dialogue - especially when she's talking to her love interest - will feel very modern, like it's normal YA. I think this problem goes back to the lack of solid world-building. It reads like not a whole lot of thought was put into this world, because it's basically scenery for the budding love story and doesn't matter all that much, so I was never really that clear on what the rules of this world or the history are, or what the magic system is like.

Finally, and this is perhaps the biggest problem, nothing really happens. Britta starts out poaching and gets dragged before the king. He offers her a deal: she gets her freedom, and a reprieve from death, if she hunts down her childhood friend for his murder of her father. She's dragged around by her soldier escort, who threaten her. She meets her childhood friend. They wander around, and meet some more people. Then they get caught by the soldiers, and threatened again. Then they wander around some more, and there's a fight scene. Then they wander around some more...

I'm sorry to say that this book didn't work out for me. The cover is gorgeous and the title sounded so intriguing. Instead I got disappointment. But hey, maybe EVER THE HUNTED will work for you.

And if you tried it, and it didn't work for you, I leave you on this note:

 

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the review copy!

1 out of 5 stars.