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44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Potential in this Series Has Died, March 29, 2008
P.C. and Kristin Cast's "House of Night" is one of those series that started off with a lot of potential and now has no idea what to do with it. Marked (House of Night, Book 1) was a little rough around the edges, but a genuinely good start for the new teen series. Things started looking a little more troublesome in Betrayed (House of Night, Book 2), when the heroine showed less growth, because who needs to create depth when the protagonist is becoming increasingly perfect? The third book in the series, Chosen (House of Night, Book 3), was just full of sloppy character development and awkward plot transitions.
I kind of anticipated "Chosen" to expand further on the increasing conflict between Zoe Redbird and Neferet. After all, "Betrayed" did end with Zoe finding out the lengths that Neferet would go just to keep her secrets and hold up the facade of being a kind-hearted priestess. Somewhere in the chaotic narrative some professors were murdered, but those ended up looking like nothing more than devices to lengthen the page count. "Chosen" instead focuses primarily on Zoe's mess of a love life, the secrets she's keeping from her friends, as well as following up on the effects of Stevie Rae's transition since the end of "Betrayed".
I did like where the Casts went with Stevie Rae. The fact that the authors obviously cared not only about her character but about her friendship with Zoe really showed. These scenes are some of the most well-written in the entire series, and their connection with one another shines in every one of them. In fact, Stevie Rae shows the most growth of any character in the book, including Zoe. Oh, hell, let's just admit it: she outshone Zoe by leaps and bounds, and stole the entire book away from the heroine. This should NEVER happen in a first person novel.
Zoe, meanwhile, was floundering from page one. Perhaps the Casts realized that Zoe was becoming too perfect and was put on a pretty tall pedestal by all of the supporting characters. "Chosen" was a sloppy attempt to create Zoe's fall from grace--when she makes really bad decisions regarding her love life and when her friends finally realize how many secrets she has irrationally been keeping from them.
The terribly written "romance" in this book was absolutely agonizing to read. But then again, this isn't exactly anything new. First there's Heath, the idiotic sap of a human who, for some reason or another, can't quite understand that Zoe's affection for him appears to be less out of real attraction and more out of the desire for that wonderful tasting red stuff running through his veins. How many times has she tried to break up with him only to embarrass herself with a display of unbridled lust a second later? Who knows--obviously way too many to count. Then there's Erik, the almost-vampire whose romance with her is about as heated as the lukewarm coffee I'm drinking. It's possible that the only reason this relationship has managed to survive three books is because they are hardly EVER together. Obviously, someone has failed to inform Zoe the simple fact of relationships being built around trust, since the amount of information she confides in Erik is pretty much nil. And lastly, there is Loren Blake. Zoe deserved this one all the way. Loren spoke so prettily, he just about reeked of deception. The Casts should have developed this a bit more if they truly wanted me to be shocked by how it turned out. The worst part about this whole three boyfriends mess is the fact that Zoe spends nearly the entire book lamenting about how she's a "ho" and doesn't deserve any of them. Well, Zoe, you said it, not me.
The relationship between Zoe and her friends was equally as dreadful. I was getting there in "Marked" and "Betrayed", but "Chosen" pushed me to the threshold of just about despising every single one of Zoe's so-called "friends" (except Stevie Rae). Zoe's deviation to persona non grata among her peers was pretty well deserved, since she was keeping just about everything from them. "Chosen" made me realize just how little they actually know about Zoe--so little, they never even knew that she preferred the separation of her birthday presents from Christmas presents. But even before that, they were more of a nuisance than anything. Their dialogue with one another has become excruciating to get through. I suppose the Casts wanted it to come off as playful, but the sheer amount of "teen speak" has reached epic proportion. When it has infiltrated into the heroine's internal dialogue in astronomical amounts, my brain wants to explode to save itself from regressing to my middle school vocabulary.
And the rivalry between Neferet and Zoe that I had been anticipating? Almost non existent. Neferet was gone nearly the entire novel. She made a couple of appearances, blurted a few of stereotypical villain-like threats and went away. Neferet doesn't exactly evoke any kind of fear or intrigue. She simply acts as a very two dimensional excuse for conflict, and whatever semblance of battle between the two has become more boring than compelling after 3 books of nothing happening.
RIP "House of Night". You weren't great, but you could have been a hell of a lot better.
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29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Horribly Written with Terrible Messages, August 24, 2008
Okay I tried to like this book. I'm young at heart and enjoy a good high school story, but this one has a some glaring problems that I could not get past.
1. There are more run-on sentences and typos in this book than I have ever seen in a professionally published novel. Two sentences cannot be hooked together with just a conjunction. The comma is not optional. This mistake is nearly on every page of the book, at least every other page.
2. It is never okay to portray a student having sex with a teacher as a good, exciting thing. This book is listed as a teen novel. What worse message can you send than it's exciting and wonderful to get physically involved with the teacher? I'm no prude, but it's not cool for a young high school girl to make out with an adult male teacher. It's not even legal.
3. Zoey is a spoiled and unlikeable character. She'll make out with anyone with lips, and we're supposed to think it's okay bc she has a fleeting moment of guilt? Wrong. She's spoiled and cruel. If a guy were physically involved with 3 or more women at the same time he'd be portrayed as a player and a jerk, not a hero. It's not okay to toy with people's emotions in a relationship by cheating on them, and it's not okay to describe it as a fun thing. If it happened in the book with the attitude that it was a bad thing, then it would be different. Honestly if a guy were playing Zoey like she is playing them, wouldn't we hate the guy? Then how can we like Zoey without having a sexist double standard? In fact the only redeemable trait I can find for Zoey is that she wants to help Stevie Rae. That's just not enough for me. Who wouldn't want to help a friend in an extreme circumstance?
4. Zoey's grandmother was the most likable person in the book for me up until when she became a hypocrite. She seems to be an open-minded accepting person bc she is kind to Zoey when her mother is not. However she is angry with Zoey's mother and step-father bc they won't accept Zoey's religion, but then she makes a blanket comment about Christianity's main tenant being that things that are different are evil. I don't doubt that many people claiming to be Christians behave this way, but there are idiots in every religion. The main tenant of Christianity is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Love your neighbor as yourself.) That seems pretty tolerant of everyone to me. I KNOW many people don't follow this, but if they don't they're not really a Christian at all. You can't criticize someone for being intolerant of your religion while making a snarky, incorrect, generalization about another. It is hypocrisy, and characters that we are supposed to love should not be hypocrites. I'm all about tolerance, but it needs to be tolerance for all, not just those that you personally like.
5. The twins behaving like they're in a Doublemint gum commercial for the entire story also drove me crazy.
6. Every guy is described in the same way. They're all tall and drop-dead gorgeous. It's like they're all mannequins from the same department store, except for the one Christian male in the story. Characters need to be diverse, and love has to be based on more than being gorgeous. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with beautiful characters, but they can't be cardboard cutouts. Each needs to be unique, and if they're a romantic lead they need to have other admirable traits besides being Zoey's lapdogs (or how's about a personality?). In this book it's one cardboard cutout that's been xeroxed a few times.
I can enjoy a great dark story provided that it's well-written, with likable characters, and a good message. Even the most brutal tragedy can have a good overall message. Chosen, however, had none of these details for me. I'm sorry to leave a book a one star review, but I can't bring myself to rate it any higher.
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14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Zoey's perfect life isn't so perfect all of a sudden..., March 9, 2008
I was pretty iffy about CHOSEN. The authors have tried to throw a few curveballs Zoey's way in this book, and although I think it's long overdue I wasn't impressed.
In book 2, BETRAYED, I really liked seeing Zoey grow into a role of leadership, think for herself, and show some courage. She had ideas, and she made things happen. But in CHOSEN Zoey backslides a lot - she keeps coming up with plans of action (especially where her romantic life is concerned), and then...doing the exact opposite of what she decides. She makes some progress with Stevie Rae, but loses control everywhere else.
She makes some decisions that cause her friends to think twice about her. But I ended up thinking less of her friends because of these incidents.
A good example comes from the very beginning of the book, in the first chapter. Zoey's birthday is Christmas Eve and she has a serious problem with "Birthmas," when Christmas and Birthday gifts are smooshed together. But all of her friends get her Christmas-themed birthday presents. This seems unlikely from people like the Twins and Damien, who are very fashion-conscious and unlikely to get excited about kitsch. Zoey isn't thrilled but she thanks them all as enthusiastically as she can.
Then her friends spy on a birthday card from Zoey's old boyfriend that mentions how much she hates getting Christmassy gifts for her birthday...and they all get angry at Zoey. Because she should have told them what not to get before she knew what they were getting? Because she didn't tell them she didn't like their presents as she was opening them? Both of these things would have been pretty tacky and rude. But her friends are unanimous in their disapproval.
This whole incident left me feeling pretty frustrated with her friends, who were way too quick to jump on her, and whose behavior had been a little bizarre to begin with. Later on in the book, this type of incident is repeated and I was even more shocked at how fickle her friends appear to be. If someone has your back, they shouldn't be so fast to turn against you.
The end result is that even though Zoey is facing more difficult challenges than ever before, they felt manufactured and artificial to me. I'm not sure if I thought CHOSEN was better or worse than earlier books - it's still fun, self-indulgent, and kind of lightweight. I'll be reading the next one when it comes out.
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