I requested this from NetGalley because of two words: “Amish Vampires”. I mean, there is no way I’m not going to request this! And it’s not even a parody – Those who Hunger is an actual Amish vampire thriller. But while the book is interesting and has its good points, it was also let down by its length and pacing that did not manage to pick up enough speed.
Those Who Hunger has an interesting premise: the Amish are vampires. Not all of them, but as descendants of Cain, enough of them are marked that they will start to crave blood. Hadassah, a young Amish girl, finds out the truth about her heritage when an outsider tries to sexually assault her. Torn by the guilt and horrified by news of more murders, she takes advantage of her rumspringa season to travel to Chicago to find her estranged brother and find the truth.
Although ‘Amish Vampires’ could very well be the topic of a parody/satire story, the book plays it straight and does it well. The worldbuilding is serious and complex – Haddasah struggles with the implications of what being a vampire means and as she works through her struggles, her family has to deal with the discovery that her youngest sister, Mary, is also marked. This is a shocking secret, and because that the younger children are not told, Hadassah and her brother Peter are left with a lot of emotional baggage over this. I actually really liked how the novel handled their struggles about it.
That said, the story does have one fairly big flaw: pacing. Perhaps it’s because there are too many characters and too many subplots (for example, I didn’t see the need for Hadassah to have a romance), but the story didn’t feel like a thriller; quite the opposite, it felt quite slow to me. With the amount of character POVs in the book, I normally feel the story speed by, even if I don’t connect to the characters because of the constant switching, but this time, I had the unique experience of not connecting to most of the many characters (Hadassah being the exception) and feeling like the story dragged. Honestly, I felt like there was enough content for two or three books in this, and while I normally prefer standalone novels, perhaps the author should have developed this as a trilogy or duology to allow for the plot to speed up a little without losing any of the complexity.
As for the killings, it was a bit confusing. I know that Hadassah went to Chicago to find her estranged (and shunned) brother, but there was a sudden twist into how other vampires were doing and I wasn’t sure how it was related to the killings in a small town (plus all the romance stuff) and then the whole book seemed to speed up towards the end. Honestly, I don’t know if the Chicago section of the book was even necessary to solve the murders. And what was up with the detectives? Were they necessary? What were they even there for? The solution to the killings seemed unrelated to a good part of the book.
Overall, I’m kind of torn on this one. It’s definitely a unique premise and I really enjoyed the family and community tensions here. Hadassah is also a good protagonist. The pacing, however, doesn’t really match my expectations of a thriller and when you couple that with a rather confusing progression to the climax, you get a somewhat frustrating read. I guess it’s a tentative recommendation for me: pick this up if the concept of Amish Vampires appeal, but don’t expect this to behave like a typical thriller.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Featured Image: Photo from Canva
I would have never thought “Amish Vampires” could be a serious concept for a book, but it seems like this author pulled it off, haha. It’s so disappointing when a book has too much crammed into one novel and bogs down the storyline. I always prefer quality over quantity. I think you’re right about the author being better off splitting the narrative between a series of books. He could have polished the pacing better.
It’s a great concept and I’m really impressed the author managed to keep it serious. I’m just disappointed about the pacing!
It definitely doesn’t sounds as though it behaves like a typical thriller, although it does sound interesting. Probably not one I’ll pick up though
I just finished a slightly more “typical” thriller and that was a lot faster to get through :p
Wow. This sounds really interesting. And I love the cover! I might stick with it, because other things being equal I’m more into Amish than vampires. I haven’t read a ton of Amish books. One I read, I thought handled the Amish culture rather clumsily, and one was just terrific, right down to the voice of the narrator. It was called When the English Fall.
I’ll have to check out When the English Fall! I think that if you don’t think about it as a thriller, the pacing and everything else might make sense?
Yes, just sort of a musing, meandering tour of the Amish/vampire world?
Something like that + a growing up tale (leaving home, trying new things, finding out where your vampiric nature fits, etc)