The Hunting Wives | By May Cobb

My thoughts

Narrative and Plot

It’s been a long time since I read a thriller, where I felt frustrated till the end and didn’t know which way it would go. The Hunting Wives is told from the protagonist, Sophie’s perspective. She is, by far, one of the most frustrating protagonist I’ve read in a long time. It makes the story compelling even if the pacing for the first half was lacking a bit.

After the first 200 pages, I thought this was going to be a three star book. But then, it picks up pace and does everything that a thriller does in the last 150 pages. More importantly, it maintains that air of mystery till the end.

Characters and Conflicts

The Hunting Wives rightly calls it the nest of vipers. Most of the characters in the story are outrageous and unlikeable. It made me flinch and want to stop reading, and at the same time compelled me to keep going, anyway. And Sophie is the most frustrating one. It’s like one of those characters who walks down the dark hallway at night in a horror movie. You know what her fate is going to be and yet she keeps getting drawn to this situation.

The rest of the Hunting Wives are mysterious and intriguing, to say the least. But Margot remains the most enigmatic of them all. This strong pull that Sophie feels towards her was lost on me in the beginning. But, as the story progresses, it makes sense.

Once the twist kicks in, it is all chaos and carefully weaved like a spider’s web. Sophie herself takes too long to fight for herself. In the end, however, it manages to bring all those pieces together and fit them into the puzzle.

Conclusion

Overall, The Hunting Wives lures you into this viper’s nest with the lull of booze and laughter and the deep dark atmosphere of an East Texas forest and then holds your attention with the tangled mess that is the life of these characters. It was uncomfortable, but had my complete attention towards the end.

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