The Hawaiian bookstore I used to buy this gem didn't have the first one in the series- MARKED, so I had to get the second, BETRAYED, and that's exactly how I felt after reading it today. BETRAYED, that I had missed out on the first book of the series.
Betrayed, House of Night Series, Book 2, by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
If Harry Potter were set in the U.S., and about only Teenagers, and had a female protagonist, and were in first person, and had a billion cuss words, and the characters used illegal substances, and if the protagonist kind of sucked, like was morally flawed in a way that, okay, if the protagonist was a female Cedric Diggory, bland and hot and sort of good but kind of whatever, and if they weren't wizards but were vampires, and if the headmaster was not an awesome Dumbledore character but was a hot crazy vampire lady, and if it had nothing at all in common with Harry Potter except that it desperately wanted to, it would be the House of Night Series.
This book is a teenager. It's gawky and awkward and cusses ALL THE TIME to try and show bravado and act super cool and fit in with all the other adult books. It tries its best to infuse feminist messages to impress its teachers(and succeeds for the most part) but then tries to seem hip by using homophobic and racist slang and acting like it can because its doing it ironically, but teenagers don't get irony, they get pregnant.
CharactersOh goodie, first person narrative. And it's a 17 year old teenager! um...yaaaaayyy.....You know it's a teenager because she uses words like "totally," and "skank ho." I know that's what I look for in a strong female protagonist. A hip teen who TOTALLY knows where the skank ho's are at. Anyway, her name is Zoe Redbird, and she's a fledgling, which means a vampire in training. She goes to vampire school. She's really gorgeous, and not only the most powerful fledgling, EVER, also, she's more powerful than adult vampires. She's the most powerfullest ever and also the most beautifullest. Want to guess if tons of guys love her? I guess I'll leave that for plot synopsis.
Villain: Neferet, headmistress.
Her harem, or boyfriends, Loren(a professor)(ew), Erik(vampire)(Shakespearean actor)("hottie"), and Heath(human)(boring)(tasty)(literally.)
Plot SynopsisLast year Zoe found out she was the most powerful vampire ever, and it was like, soooo embaaaarrassing, she just wants to be a normal girl going to school to become a vampire! But oh well, now she has to take over the elite club at school, the Dark Daughters. Her hot hot boyfriend Erik is out of town at a vampire acting competition(YUP), so I guess she HAS to fall in love with Loren, a professor at school, a vampire poet Laurette(YUP), who is so dreamy. Oh..but then there's Heath, who is a human thus BOOOORINNG, but he lets her bite him, and his blood is like, totally delicious. Also, damn damn, shit, damn damn ass. Anyway DAMNIT, fledglings keep dying because the transformation into vampires kills them some times, and that's too bad. Also, plot points in the form of humans keep disappearing and dying, and it looks like vampires are doing it. Damn. So Zoe and her harem deal with their emotions, and Zoe deals with how hard it is to be so amazing, except she can't stop eating Heath, which is totally against the rules(BECAUSE SHE COULD REALLY HURT OR KILL HIM), what's an extremely weak protagonist to do? Well it turns out it's all
Neferet's fault-she's bringing the dead fledglings back to life somehow and they are feeding on humans. Zoe saves Heath from this, using her amazing powers, and later whispers mean things into Neferets ear about how she knows Neferet is total a skank ho and soon everyone else will, too. But we don't know how, why, or what, or anything about anything. That's when this book ends.
.....So....What have we wrapped up?Almost nothing, that's why you have to buy the second book!
That's...that's some sort of genius thinking..The best kind!
Writing QualityLook I should really preface this by admitting that I am terrified of teenagers. They make me so nervous. When I meet one in real life I don't know how to talk to it, so(true story) I will awkwardly say things like, "So, do you...take classes?" What? Like, it's not a Jane Austen novel where the girls are all , Shall I take sewing lessons, then? Or a bit of piano? It's public high school they HAVE to go.."do you take classes"..I'm so weird, so they just respond by staring at me with those tired, dead eyes and I'm like WHY ARE YOU SO TIRED? Didn't you just sleep for 14 hours? WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY? Terrifying, so sulky. I don't know. So I don't engage many teenagers because I am afraid of them, and as a result I'm not sure how the hip kids talk nowadays.
However, I highly doubt that teens still use the same verbiage they did in the late 90's. Do 16 year olds really describe cute boys as "totally yummy?" "Damn, he's totally yummy." Did people EVER describe other people, in all seriousness, as "skank ho's"? It just seems so weirdly obvious, so cliche teenager. Like I said, I'm no expert on how they talk, but I'd believe this book more if the teens spoke in deep raspy demonic undertones and said things like, "He was yummy....TO CONSUME."
I'm exaggerating, but teenagers do make me uncomfortable, and the ones in this story make me even more uncomfortable because the writing style is just so unbelievable. It's not teenagers talking, it's an adult trying to talk like a cool teenager. It's Dad putting on an Ed Hardy T-Shirt and asking where the hip bars are at, you know? Yeah, it's bad writing.
Feminism
I gotta admit, I ate it up. There was some really good stuff in here. Stuff most of us are well acquainted with already(religion is often used as an excuse for misogyny, history is written by men-think about it, etc.) It even subtly touches on the issue of females sharing power. It's dumbed down and snuck in there, which is slightly insulting, but it's there. They worship a goddess and are all about girl power, and because of that if I ever have a daughter I would rather her read this than Twilight. This is cotton candy-Twilight is garbage. Not that I'm a feminist scholar or anything-I learned almost everything I know about it from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Hillary Clinton biographies.
Book Rating
On the crappy book scale-9. It's BAD, okay, this is NOT literature, this makes Harry Potter look like War and Peace, this book is NOT for people who love reading GOOD books-but if the reason you read is to escape life for a while and jump into the skin of a beautiful Mary Sue who is good at everything and gets everything she wants, I won't judge you(too much) if you pick up these books. (That's..a lie. I'm sorry. I will judge you. I can't help it, it's what I do.)
Oh no...wait...that's...that's like K-Fed mixed with a pop culture white trash reference or something...that's not right..that's not...the picture..hold on, one second...
