Book Review: MARKED

Title: Marked
Series: House of Night Series
Author(s): P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast
Published: 2007

About the book:

When sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird gets Marked as a fledgling vampire she must join the House of Night school where she will train to become an adult vampire. That is, if she makes it through the Change. But Zoey is no ordinary fledgling. She has been chosen as special by the Goddess Nyx and discovers her amazing new power to conjure the elements: earth, air, fire, water and spirit. When Zoey joins the House of Night she makes some good friends, but also an enemy in the form of Aphrodite, a beautiful and popular older student who makes life as difficult as possible for Zoey and her friends and is her rival for the affections of school hearthrob, Erik Night.

When Zoey discovers that Aphrodite, the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school’s most elite group, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look within herself to embrace her destiny - with a little help from her new vampire friends.

My thoughts:

This book did bring something new to the Vampire genre. Instead of the usual girl-meets-boy-falls-in-love, boy-turns-out-to-be-a-vampire story, we meet Zoey who is a tough, ordinary girl - until the day she gets marked by a vampire. Relieved to leave her mum and stepfather behind, she moves to House of Night, a boarding school for vampires-to-be. But it turns out that Zoey isn't that ordinary after all; Nyx, the vampire goddess, has chosen Zoey as her eyes and ears at the boarding school, and has rewarded her with powerful gifts.
But Zoey isn't only turning into a vampire, she's also part Cherokee.
And that's the part that bored me. The old Cherokee traditions and rituals, and the Cherokee language that was used in the book wasn't interesting at all, and it didn't have any important value for the story. For me it was just confusing and over-the-top.


I haven't made up my mind about the main character, Zoey, yet. I really liked her in the beginning of the book, she was funny, quirky and tough. But then something happened, I wasn't moved or touched by Zoey, or any of the other characters in the book for that matter, and I didn't really care about what happened to Zoey, or between Zoey and Erik/Aphrodite. Instead I found Zoey a bit annoying, biased and winy.

The book was okay overall, not the best book I read, but not the worst either. Am I longing to read Betrayed, the second book in the House of night series? No. But I'll read it anyway since I borrowed it from the library. Perhaps the series will get better?


Grade: 2 of 5

Fan(g) Girl