Frankly, I was a bit picky with choosing books this year. I usually am, since I prefer not to read a book that will put me to sleep and cause confusion. Originally I was going to go with PLAINSONG by Kent Haruf. Unfortunately, the bookstore I went to did not have it, but they did have I HUNT KILLERS by Barry Lyga and I had bought that. The first chapter was rather appealing and tasteful, and the summery itself had a interesting concept. The concept being: having a serial killer as a father who teaches their child all the ropes in hopes to be their successor. Instead, our main character Jasper "Jazz" Dent intends to break away from that stigma and goes forth to assist the police to bring the criminal to justice.
Jazz is quite the character as well, he's very observant and mentally notes of all kinds of different points of the crime scene which is described within the first chapter too. His thoughts are quite in depth and it seems that his father's lessons have paid off. He would have been interesting serial killer, nevertheless this is about him going up against his father's various prestigious titles as his career.
I'm curious to know though, what were your thoughts upon picking up I HUNT KILLERS? Is it appealing so far? If it was not required for a summer book discussion would you perchance and read it anyway?
9 comments:
I just finished reading the first chapter of I Hunt Killers. I picked the book up because it did seem like an interesting idea. Having a serial killer father who teaches you how to also kill like he did sounds very interesting. Now, I have only read the first chapter so I cannot say much so far. What I can say is that too many characters have been introduced without any background information given, so that was a tad irksome. The book also starts a bit awkwardly, I did not like that it directly went into the issue. I would have much more liked it if Barry Lyga would have made the first chapter an introductory one which gave both information about Jazz, his father, and whoever Connie and Howie are. Then again, it is his book...
I most likely wouldn't have picked up the book if it weren't an assignment for summer reading mainly because of the first chapter being so-so.
I also picked up the book because of the title and its description made it seem very interesting. Now that I have read the first chapter I don't think that it was appealing. I don't think that the rest of the book is going to be much more appealing either.
I completely agree with Brandon because if you start a book without much background information it just does not make sense to me. It has made the rest of the book a bit more harder to understand. Like Brandon I would have liked Lyga to add more background information. The only thing that I observed and liked in this chapter was how Jasper was observing the crime scene with his binoculars hiding in a field and analyzing what the cops were doing.
Like Brandon I also wouldn't have picked this book if it weren't a summer assignment.
Also I deleted my first two comments because I kept forgetting to write something.
I chose I Hunt Killers because it seemed to be the most interesting although I still did not expect much. The concept seemed the least boring and I was hoping it would be well written. However, I was unimpressed by the story line and characterization. I feel the author used his “dark” concept of a serial killer passing down his legacy onto his son only to make the book seem “edgy” and not as something that would work with his style of writing. Even the cover with its blood seems overdramatic. With the first chapter jumping right into the conflict it seems like a mystery book for younger children or he was trying to be an interesting author and pull you in with that “hook” your fifth grade teachers always talked about.
When deciding on which books to read for summer reading I as well tend to be picky. I love mysteries, investigations, detective work etc. So this would be a simple decision for me.
I completely agree with most of the people replying to your post that; this book in the beginning is very well rushed. As Emilie says it sounds like a younger children's book, and I have to agree. Not just how the author in the very first chapter, does not introduce it's characters well enough - it jumps right into an investigation and some strange kid spying on it, but also the details. Like the font is rather large I consider, and the author does not use much detail. I don't have much of an image in the first chapter, and in the first chapter is were the author is suppose to make the biggest impression.
While choosing the book I wanted to read for summer reading, I read over the summaries and found idea of the son of a serial killer to be interesting as an idea. In the beginning though, I noticed that Jazz was watching the cops as they found a body, but how did he get there? And how did he know about the crime just as the police found out? There were a few plot holes throughout the book, which bothered me quite a bit.
Besides the plot holes though, I really liked the book and probably would enjoy it if it weren't required. I really liked Jazz as a character, since he wasn't the typical kid obviously. He's good at sweet talking, quick to judge situations, and like you said Marissa, very observant. He got all these traits from his father, as he waas growing up to be a future serial killer. I honestly found it interesting to think about how much of a culture shock it must have been to him that what Billy did was wrong. Jazz had this sort of need to have justice to prove himself, and felt that the whole serial killer thing was holding him down, and that, to me made Jazz, as well as the book, really enjoyable and interesting.
DianaV11- The reason that I chose this book for summer reading was because it had a different and appealing concept that I had never heard or thought of before. It also appealed most to me out of the other four options. Throughout the whole book, Jazz's character appealed to me because his character and thought process was very in depth. If I knew someone who read the book and gave me an outline of the story (including recommending it) I probably would read it anyway.
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