The Hunting Party

The Hunting Party is kind of [b:No Exit|39938177|No Exit|Taylor Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1541624527l/39938177.SY75.jpg|56940541] meets Glass Onion in its combination of being confined to dangerous circumstances by winter weather and insufferable self-absorbed rich people.

The premise is simple enough: every year, a group of college friends vacation together. One person in the group plans the trip. This year they're off to an exclusive remote wilderness hunting lodge for New Year's. But then one of the guests goes missing. When she's found, she's dead. And not due to exposure! Someone killed her is what I'm getting at.

Thrillers are not my usual genre, because the twists often make me mad. Either because I think they are predictable or silly. I also think they can stigmatize mental illness, which is already plenty stigmatized. Unfortunately, a little of all of that happened in the end with The Hunting Party. I saw two bigger twists coming far ahead of time. There was another twist that I did not see coming but found to be a goofy aside more than anything.

It's a shame, because the audiobook is fantastically done. Full cast, charming accents, narration that felt unreliable but in a way that felt more human than frustrating. And to be fair, I was wildly guessing at every person and theory for the first chunk of the book. There was a nice slow build with little hints making you second guess things. It was really fun to listen to! I just felt let down in the end because I wanted to have a shocking reveal.

Oh also, something that extremely threw me off was how Doug's chapters were in third person but everyone else spoke in first person? Why? I kept waiting for there to be a reason behind that. Anyway. If you want a well-produced audiobook that feels fitting for this time of year and you don't share my grudge against thrillers, you may well have fun weaving through this twisty little thing. It's also on hoopla if you want it immediately.