Brilliant !

Great audio book, would recommend.
i was a bit put off by the description, as I'm not normally interested in wagons and such, but the story is great and keeps you traveling. beautiful work 😍

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Brilliant

Really enjoyed this book kinda got lost in it well written very atmospheric highly recommended but not for faint hearted

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A disturbing horror tale living up to all the hype

The Hunger is described as a reimagining of the story of the ill-fated Donner Party expedition with a horror twist. If you want to see how closely it follows the historical narrative you can check out Alma’s blog here. But, in a nutshell, the story follows a real journey of a wagon party in 1846 as some ninety odd settlers as they made their way from Independence, Missouri to California. They became stranded in the snowbound passes of Sierra Nevada and purportedly resorted to cannibalism in their struggle to survive.
Accolades for the book include The Hunger making NPR's list of 100 Best Horror Stories and being named one of the 21 best horror novels written by a woman. It’s now being optioned for film production by Ridley Scott.
So, does the story live up to the hype? Well, if you know how I listen to my audiobooks from previous reviews, then you’ll know I tend to partake during the early hours of the morning. So the idea of listening to a horror book at these times adds some context to how scared I am while immersing myself in the tale.
Let me say straight away that Kirsten Potter’s narration is the perfect mix of storyteller and dramatist for this kind of tale. She has quite a breathy style, but to my mind this doesn’t detract from the listening at all and her separation of character’s voices works very well for both male and female. She succeeds in creating atmosphere in the scenes, particularly in evoking the ambiguous sense of dread that pervades this novel.
Despite a sense of being on the wide open plains of America, the ever impending doom over the party and the notion that they are being tracked creates a ‘closed-box’ feel to the story. There are numerous flashbacks which are skillfully written and I never lost sense of what was happening or when. These serve to set the characters in the mind of the reader, and I think it’s fair to say that the majority have dark secrets to hide and are in some way running from their past. The author manages to make the reader/listener identify with every one of them – even the most despicable. From a teenage girl haunted by the voices of the dead, to a lone man fleeing a misplaced guilty conscience, to the errant wife of the wagon train’s leader.
The setting is wondrously described and I had no problem imagining the baking heat of the mid-west plains to the freezing heights of the Sierra Nevada mountains. All are expertly described, together with harrowing scenes of bestial attacks, mass graves of the Hunger’s victims and depictions of the hardship endured at every step. You get the sense that none of the characters are safe, but I’ll not spoil it for you by saying how things end up. Suffice it to say that the book will leave you affected afterwards. I’d be surprised if it didn’t have you reaching for Wikipedia to see how much of the story was true.
The only niggle I have is that the UK cover for the book does not hold up to the scope and vividness of the UK cover (I’ve shown the latter here.)
So, my verdict? If you’re a horror fan you won’t be disappointed by this offering. Alma Katsu has departed a little from her usual territory with The Hunger and her next book is apparently a thriller drawing on her experience of working as an intelligence operative. But, I hope she’ll bring her pen back top horror in the near future.

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1 person found this helpful

History Merged With Supernatural Imaginings!

Alma Katsu has taken the real life historical tale of The Donner Party and moulded it with considerable respect to the factual detail into a horror story. It seems likely that the real-life version ended in cannibalism which you might say is horror enough but Katsu throws a supernatural angle into it too.

A wagon train of 100 people sets off on what back in 1846 seems like an incredible journey to even consider. Travelling across obstacles like the Sierra Nevada and the Great Salt Lake Desert Donner and his party encountered a myriad obstacles. Poor decisions and delays meant they missed a proposed rendezvous with a larger group and from there everything but the terrain went downhill.

I enjoyed the book and thought the near seamless integration of the supernatural element with historical fact was done extremely well. I couldn't quite see it as a five star read though because the book took a long time to get to the meat of the story and then an awful lot happens in a very short space of time. Even then though there are one or two long flashbacks which added little right when it all got exciting.The narration by Kirsten Potter is strong if a little mechanical in the quieter, more descriptive moments.

So it's a clever concept executed fairly well to create an enjoyable listen.

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23 people found this helpful

Hard work

To be honest this wasn’t really my thing. Continued to the end but boy was it hard going.

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1 person found this helpful

Gripping

I couldn't stop listening to this. It is frighteningly good. If you love horror you'll love this.

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A bit underwhelming

I had high hopes for this book given the previous reviews but it didn't really hit the mark with me. The characters didn't grab me and the story just seemed a bit disjointed, the narrator was ok.

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3 people found this helpful

Slow start but really good

I really enjoyed it. Overall well worth the credit. It started slow but once I got through to chapter 5 i was throughly absorbed.

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A tad too long

Narrators voice and delivery started to get on my nerves after a while probably due to how long it is.

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Gripping story - Poor Ending

When this audiobook ended I was honestly surprised. I was at least expecting another two or three chapters to wrap up what was an otherwise tense and gripping story. There were threads still left unresolved and characters who deserved more time in the spotlight in the final few chapters.

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