Marked (House of Night, #1)

by P.C. Cast

[Jo]

Life changes for sixteen-year-old Zoey when a Tracker arrives at her school and marks her with a tattoo-like sapphire blue crescent moon outline on her forehead. Zoey is now a fledgling vampyre, and must move away from home to go to the vampyre school, House of Night. If it’s not bad enough that her friends now think she’s a freak and she has to leave, vampire queen be Aphrodite, high priestess in training and leader of the Dark Daughters, has made it her mission to cause hell for Zoey. On the plus side side, the gorgeous Erik Night seems to take an interest...

I liked Marked, it was a great start to a series, but it read very much like a first book. Most of the book is setting up this new world that Zoey has to live in; along with her, we’re finding out about the vampyre mythology is this novel, the lessons of the school and the rules. Nothing huge happens for just over half of the book, as Zoey adjusts to her new life and the changes that are happening to her.

But then things start picking up when things start happening to Zoey that aren’t supposed to happen to vampyres for several years, some students die due to their body rejecting the Change that happens as human becomes vampyre, and the rituals held by the House of Night and those by the Dark Daughters have some weird effects.

Unfortunatley, I can’t go into much more detail without spoiling the story, as the main action happens in the later part of the book. Marked has a resolution of sorts, but there are more questions unanswered, the really interesting ones, which makes me think that the series will pick up a bit more in the next few books. I have a few suspicions about the next books, but I don’t think I can talk about them without spoiling Marked.

Stevie Rae and Damien, some of Zoey’s friends, are awesome. Stevie Rae is just so cute and lovely, and such a great friend, and Damien makes me laugh with his jokey references to him being gay and the only guy in the group, and his wide vocabulary. Shaunee and Erin, another two friends, are cool enough, but the whole “twin” thing – they’re very alike – annoys the hell out of me. I guess that’s just something I’ll have to deal with. Erik Night, Zoey’s love interest, seemed a little forced to me, too. Some of the things he said didn’t seem believable, in my opinion.

There were some things I didn’t like about this book, though. I cannot count the amount of times the words “hateful”, “ho” and “hag/s” were mentioned, and it really did my head in, “hateful” especially, as it’s not a common word with teens. Also, fairly often it feels like the authors are trying to force their own opinions on things on to the readers. The issues that I noticed were:

- People of Faith are obsessive and mean – I myself am an atheist, but I found this badgering of faith a bit much. It was constant and unnecessary, and kind of disgusting.
- Only sluts perform oral sex on guys – this I felt was totally wrong. I don’t think people should be prejudiced for what goes on in their personal life. If a person chooses to do so, then I don’t see how it’s anyone else’s business.
- Homophobia is wrong – I agree with this, but the idea was forced a little too much. Damien is gay, and it was mentioned that he gets a little harassed about it, but we don’t actually see it happen, so it felt a bit much.
I just didn’t like the feeling that I was being bashed over the head with the authors’ own opinions.

Overall, the book was pretty good, and I’ll definitely be picking up the next novel, Betrayed, to find out what happens next!