Hey Addicts, I received HUNTER by Mercedes Lackey from Disney Hyperion, through Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion. After sitting on this one for a while I'm finally ready to put my honest opinion to blogger words for this YA Dystopian book. But first, a little about HUNTER.

They came after the Diseray. Some were terrors ripped from our collective imaginations, remnants of every mythology across the world. And some were like nothing anyone had ever dreamed up, even in their worst nightmares.
Monsters.
Long ago, the barriers between our world and the Otherworld were ripped open, and it’s taken centuries to bring back civilization in the wake of the catastrophe. Now, the luckiest Cits live in enclosed communities, behind walls that keep them safe from the hideous creatures fighting to break through. Others are not so lucky.
To Joyeaux Charmand, who has been a Hunter in her tight-knit mountain community since she was a child, every Cit without magic deserves her protection from dangerous Othersiders. Then she is called to Apex City, where the best Hunters are kept to protect the most important people.
Joy soon realizes that the city’s powerful leaders care more about luring Cits into a false sense of security than protecting them. More and more monsters are getting through the barriers, and the close calls are becoming too frequent to ignore. Yet the Cits have no sense of how much danger they’re in—to them, Joy and her corps of fellow Hunters are just action stars they watch on TV.
When an act of sabotage against Joy takes an unbearable toll, she uncovers a terrifying conspiracy in the city. There is something much worse than the usual monsters infiltrating Apex. And it may be too late to stop them…

First, I want to thank the publisher and Netgalley for gifting me a copy in exchange for my honest opinion. In that spirit, here's my honest thought: I'm not a fan.
I sadly fell into my own cover excitement trap. Show me a cool cover with a Dragon--I'm there. Give me a book blurb that ready like a fantasy and you've got another claw in me, pun intended. Of course once I realized those claws were attached to a dystopian/hunger games/divergant spin (yes ANOTHER one) and I fought off those claws in a way even Katnis wouldn't have been able to.
Sadly I didn't finish this one. Outside my personal dislike of dystopian, I just couldn't connect with the heroine Joy. I liked that she wasn't a snarky smart ass, but she didn't come off right for me.
Also, she was kinda stuck up for a girl who literally had nothing. The cast of characters I met, including the love interest, before I set this one down, were okay, but none were strong enough to make me want to see past my issues with the whole dystopian way of things. Plus there were just was to much similarities to Hunger games. (I admit I've seen the first HG movie and because of that I imagined several of the characters as those from HG).
Merceded Lackey definitely has serious writing chops. I liked her style and the way she described and built her universe. If she has anything else that's not dystopian, I'd totally read it.
Since I didn't finish this one, so I can't say I'd recommend it.
~Dynomoon