The Hunger
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3.7 • 34 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"Supernatural suspense at its finest...The best thing about The Hunger is that it will scare the pants off you."--The New York Times Book Review
"Deeply, deeply disturbing, hard to put down, not recommended reading after dark."--Stephen King
A tense and gripping reimagining of one of America's most fascinating historical moments: the Donner Party with a supernatural twist.
Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere.
That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos. They cannot seem to escape tragedy...or the feelings that someone--or something--is stalking them. Whether it's a curse from the beautiful Tamsen Donner (who some think might be a witch), their ill-advised choice of route through uncharted terrain, or just plain bad luck, the ninety men, women, and children of the Donner Party are heading into one of one of the deadliest and most disastrous Western adventures in American history.
As members of the group begin to disappear, the survivors start to wonder if there really is something disturbing, and hungry, waiting for them in the mountains...and whether the evil that has unfolded around them may have in fact been growing within them all along.
Effortlessly combining the supernatural and the historical, The Hunger is an eerie, thrilling look at the volatility of human nature, pushed to its breaking point.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
We’re suckers for a ghost story around the fire—and The Hunger is exactly that in book form. Alma Katsu reimagines the doomed Donner Party expedition with ghoulish detail, chilling character detail, and lots of supernatural horror. As the ill-fated wagon train heads deeper into unforgiving landscapes, the suspense and dread flare higher and higher. We got totally absorbed in this shiver-inducing spin on a historical tragedy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Katsu (The Taker) injects the supernatural into this brilliant retelling of the ill-fated Donner Party. In the prologue, set in April 1847, a team of rescuers sets out to find the last survivor of the expedition, Lewis Keseberg, but they locate only his abandoned cabin. "What looked like a human vertebra, cleaned of skin" and a "scattering of teeth" lie outside in the snow. Flash back to June 1846. George Donner is leading a wagon train to California. Those headed west often leave letters under rocks in the hope that an eastbound traveler will retrieve them and take them to the nearest post office. In one place, one of Donner's teenage daughters finds hundreds of such letters, all with the ominous message: "Turn back or you will die." Then a young boy disappears and is later found savagely mutilated, as if by an animal. The members of the party come to suspect that shape-changers are responsible for the carnage, and they encounter increasing challenges to their survival. Fans of Dan Simmons's The Terror will find familiar and welcome chills. Author tour.)
Customer Reviews
Creepy, and violent and wagons
Loved every minute of this story. Excellent pacing, compelling characters, and scenes that feel visceral. Fans of Steven King take note.
I hunger for a better book.
Very unsatisfying conclusion to what felt like far too much build-up, background, unlikeable characters, unresolved love triangles, and an antagonist that was equal parts unbelievable and completely uninteresting. Very disappointing.