This is a taut, unsettling and subversive story about identity, power and the blurred boundaries between predator and prey.

The unnamed Israeli protagonist accepts a corporate transfer to the United States, more to escape her old life than to chase a new one. She arrives adrift, disconnected from others and uncertain of herself, her days defined by the powerlessness of office politics.

Everything shifts when her older male supervisor begins taking her along on hunting trips. She quickly discovers a surprising skill with a gun, and the thrill of the hunt begins to consume her. Hunting with him becomes the one stable part of her life, a sharp contrast to the instability and looming threats in her corporate role.

As the seasons change, the lines between hunter and hunted, human and animal, reality and perception, grow dangerously thin.
Written with precision and an almost poetic detachment, this book is as much about the quiet violence of daily life as it is about the visceral act of hunting. It lingers long after the final page.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

Bleak, sterile, ominous, unsettling...

An Israeli woman moves to the US for work and starts going on hunting trips with her male colleague - she is a good shooter having served in the army (in fact, it is a strange time to be reading this...).

She starts an affair of sorts with her colleague, but as readers we are kept guessing at the deeper feelings and desires of the main character - she seems stoic and apathetic but can all of a sudden explode in rage. There are themes woven into the text on motherhood, power dynamics. It's not uninteresting but because it is so cold, I never really cared.

The final page turns things upside down and creates many questions, that I am now left with :)

This is not my type of book, I found it too negative and nihilistic for my taste. Doesn't mean it isn't well done.

Unsettling but still hard to put down... who is hunting who?

4.5 stars.

There's a metaphor or two here I think, and a story that felt both central but also at a distance with the writing/narrator style not letting us feel all that close to our protagonist.

We learn her story though - but I've just realised I don't think we learn her name - a woman has transferred offices from Israel to America. She's got a simple life and routine, work and has become entangled in a hunting pastime with co-workers, eventually with her superior and his wife, becoming closer to their family and improving in her own shooting abilities.

There's a quiet plot that slowly rears its head, that you see coming but don't realise (I feel like a metaphor for the deer munching in the forest would be quite apt here). The protagonist has left family behind, does not want to go back and feels her position and thus her ability to stay in the country is under threat.

None of the characters emerged as hugely sympathetic. There's a permanent feel of menace, though this will be part of my dislike for guns at play. I found it hard to relate to the hunters, and had no real idea what the woman's job and workplace are all about.

That didn't stop me feeling an urge to read on though, to understand what was going on. I had no idea how this was going to end... and getting to the last page, I had to re-read a few times to try and interpret what I was reading. Wow, quite a closer. Snuck up on this reader. And made me want to re-read to pick up on a few things I glossed over.

It's quietly powerful and not an obvious thriller or psychological plot, is rather different to previous reads, and felt original and memorable. I was uneasy reading this, even when it was over.

Good for those who like something different, something that isn't comfortable, a read that doesn't give easy answers or provide likeable leads.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

Hunting in America is told in first person vignettes, detailing different hunting trips after moving from Isreal to America for work.

I was really hoping to love this, but a few of the characters actions seemed to happen without motivation, and it was hard to root for some of the decisions they made.

I’d have really liked to know more the additional characters, but this is a personal presence!

Hunting in America by Tehila Hakimi convincingly portrays a woman wanting to leave her past life behind her and the relationship she begins with a new work colleague who has baggage of his own.