Chosen (House of Night, Book 3) (Paperback)

by P. C. Cast (Author), Kristin Cast (Author) "Yep, I have a seriously sucky birthday," I told my cat, Nala..." (more)
Key Phrases: undead dead kids, adult vamps, affinity for earth, Stevie Rae, Professor Nolan, House of Night (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up—This installment picks up exactly where Betrayed (St. Martin's, 2007) left off. Zoey Redbird, leader of the Dark Daughters and vampyre fledgling extraordinaire, has discovered some mysterious and disturbing events occurring at her vampyre finishing school. Her ex-roommate and best friend, Stevie Rae, is "undead" and only due to Zoey's love and belief that she still possesses some humanity has Stevie Rae not become a true monster. Zoey must quickly find a way to reverse what has been done to her before it is too late. To complicate matters, Zoey is forced to keep this a secret from her friends and has been betrayed by her mentor and advisor, Neferet. Zoey knows that Neferet is behind the creation of these "undead" creatures and is not at all what she seems. For help, she turns to her rival, Aphrodite, who becomes her confidante and partner in crime. Horror strikes the House of Night when two professors end up brutally murdered. Cast takes the series up a notch with this installment, and readers will be on the edge of their seats waiting for its continuation. This book is a must for any library with a vampire following—but it does contain explicit language and sexual situations.—Donna Rosenblum, Floral Park Memorial High School, NY
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Review

Praise for The House of Night:

“The Cast and Cast team is back and stirring up deep trouble in their beguiling supernatural world….The issues faced by these teens are not child's play, and the stakes are life and death.”

–Romantic Times (4 ½ stars) on Betrayed

 

“Cast reeled me in from paragraph one. I…devoured it in one sitting.”

–MaryJanice Davidson, New York Times bestselling author of the Undead series on Marked

 

 “Marked is one of the best coming of age stories to come out of Oklahoma since S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. It teaches about the beauty of being a social outcast, friendship, and finding your own inner spirituality.”

–The Beltane Papers

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Product Details Reading level: Young Adult Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (March 4, 2008) Language: English ISBN-10: 0312360304 ISBN-13: 978-0312360306 Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (92 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #263 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books) Popular in these categories: (What's this?) #23 in  Books > Children's Books > Ages 9-12 #27 in  Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction #28 in  Books > Children's Books > Literature > Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror This is item 3 in The House of Night Series.

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First Sentence:
"Yep, I have a seriously sucky birthday," I told my cat, Nala. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
undead dead kids, adult vamps, affinity for earth, rec hall

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Stevie Rae, Professor Nolan, House of Night, High Priestess, Dark Daughters, Loren Blake, Full Moon Ritual, Sons of Erebus, Utica Square, Great Goddess Nyx, People of Faith, Kenny Chesney, Happy Birthday, Prefect Council, Professor Blake

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	84% buy the item featured on this page: Chosen (House of Night, Book 3) 3.8 out of 5 stars (92) $8.95
	5% buy Marked (House of Night, Book 1) 3.4 out of 5 stars (296) $8.95
	5% buy Hunted (House of Night, Book 5) 3.5 out of 5 stars (148) $11.43
	4% buy Betrayed (House of Night, Book 2) 4.1 out of 5 stars (96) $8.95

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Customer Reviews

92 Reviews 5 star:  (35) 4 star:  (25) 3 star:  (14) 2 star:  (12) 1 star:  (6)           Average Customer Review 3.8 out of 5 stars (92 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 37 of 40 people found the following review helpful: 2.0 out of 5 stars The Potential in this Series Has Died, March 29, 2008 By  Aurie "Devourer of Books" (California) - See all my reviews 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. 19 of 20 people found the following review helpful: 1.0 out of 5 stars Horribly Written with Terrible Messages, August 24, 2008 By  Queen Colleen - See all my reviews 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. 6 of 7 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes I wonder about Zoey..., April 22, 2008 By  MoonbeamDancer "Book Kitty" (Texas) - See all my reviews Chosen is the third book in the House of Night series. When we left off Stevie Rae, was fighting to keep hold of her humanity and Zoey was doing her best to help her. Zoey was also dealing with being the leader of the Dark Daughters and with having 3 guys interested in her. One of the things I really didn't care for in this book was, besides the way Zoey kept calling herself a ho because she was "involved" with 3 different guys (one of who is a teacher and she sleeps with) is how her friends jump and turn on her, at one point. They jump on her because they didn't know she didn't care for Christmassy themed birthday presents (she had told Stevie Rae) and because she kept the truth about Stevie Rae to herself, not telling them she was alive. As to the 3 guys, Heath should of been gotten rid of in the first book, he's immature and totally unsuited for Zoey (even before her change). Erik is a self absorbed snot nosed jerk who can't see beyond he's own ego and jumps to all sorts of conclusions with Zoey after he catches her with Loren, who had sex with Zoey, just to wrap her around his little finger and to make her jump when he said to. Compared to the other two books, this book was disappointing in that Zoey's friends are a bunch of hypocrites, Zoey herself is even more of a Mary Sue, and out of all the people in this series, Stevie Rae and Aphrodite are the only ones who have shown any growth or complexity. I'm willing to give the next book Untamed a try, but I think this series is starting to go down hill.		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars Great book! Same as the first 2 books. I loved them! Keeps you at the edge of your seat! I didn't want it to end! Published 5 days ago by Octobra L. Betts 4.0 out of 5 stars great teenager wanting to feel special book teaches teens that nature is something that we all should not take for granted and it is great goth fantasy. Published 7 days ago by Janet Hannon 3.0 out of 5 stars Chosen The author kept repeating herself. The book got very boring since you had to keep re-reading the same information. Published 19 days ago by Raelene Allred 1.0 out of 5 stars Huge waste of my time. I barely finished this book. There were many times while I was reading when I wanted to throw this book in the trash where it belongs. Read more Published 22 days ago by J. Sanders 5.0 out of 5 stars Great story and an easy read! I really liked the story line and the characters. The books are just the right length and were never boring. I cannot wait for Book 6. Read more Published 25 days ago by A. Vaughan-Sarandi 3.0 out of 5 stars not yet sure. I have read every book in this series so far. And I so far think that Zoey Redbird is a caring yet shelfish charter. Read more Published 1 month ago by Megan Altorfer 3.0 out of 5 stars Worst book of the series, still engaging though and a quick read This is the third book in the House of Night series. I think it was one of the worst books in the series; but it was still engaging and fast to read so I rate it as an "okay"... Read more Published 1 month ago by K. Eckert 2.0 out of 5 stars So far the worst in the series I had a really, really hard time getting through this book. In fact, after the first 1/4 of it I was tempted to put it down and stop reading. Read more Published 1 month ago by D. Suzuki 4.0 out of 5 stars Series is not great, but gets better with each book I enjoy books that are different from the norm, and while these books are a completely new concept that I have not seen yet, they also could grow quite a bit. Read more Published 1 month ago by Jamie Snyder 5.0 out of 5 stars Vamplicious Great new approach on vampires. I couldn't put these books down and have passed them onto my vamp loving friends. Twilight series, watchout! Published 2 months ago by S. L. Schaible Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (March 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312360304
• ISBN-13: 978-0312360306
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (92 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #263 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #23 in	Books > Children's Books > Ages 9-12
  #27 in	Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
  #28 in	Books > Children's Books > Literature > Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror

• This is item 3 in The House of Night Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Potential in this Series Has Died, March 29, 2008

By	Aurie "Devourer of Books" (California) - See all my reviews

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.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horribly Written with Terrible Messages, August 24, 2008

By	Queen Colleen - See all my reviews

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.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes I wonder about Zoey..., April 22, 2008

By	MoonbeamDancer "Book Kitty" (Texas) - See all my reviews

Chosen is the third book in the House of Night series. When we left off Stevie Rae, was fighting to keep hold of her humanity and Zoey was doing her best to help her. Zoey was also dealing with being the leader of the Dark Daughters and with having 3 guys interested in her.

One of the things I really didn't care for in this book was, besides the way Zoey kept calling herself a ho because she was "involved" with 3 different guys (one of who is a teacher and she sleeps with) is how her friends jump and turn on her, at one point. They jump on her because they didn't know she didn't care for Christmassy themed birthday presents (she had told Stevie Rae) and because she kept the truth about Stevie Rae to herself, not telling them she was alive.

As to the 3 guys, Heath should of been gotten rid of in the first book, he's immature and totally unsuited for Zoey (even before her change). Erik is a self absorbed snot nosed jerk who can't see beyond he's own ego and jumps to all sorts of conclusions with Zoey after he catches her with Loren, who had sex with Zoey, just to wrap her around his little finger and to make her jump when he said to.

Compared to the other two books, this book was disappointing in that Zoey's friends are a bunch of hypocrites, Zoey herself is even more of a Mary Sue, and out of all the people in this series, Stevie Rae and Aphrodite are the only ones who have shown any growth or complexity.

I'm willing to give the next book Untamed a try, but I think this series is starting to go down hill.