Marked (House of Night, Book 1)

I would recommend this book to anyone that liked the Twilight series.This is also a very addicting series.

I read Twilight and loved it, like most other teenage girls in the U.S. But before twilight, I've always liked the Vampire spin on stories. I watched Buffy and Angel at young ages (too young, probably), and one of my favorite movies is Interview with a Vampire. I love Anne Rice. I really would have liked to enjoy this book. The idea of it is interesting, a girl becomes "marked" by a vampire and escapes her horrible step-father and brainless mother to a school full of attractive vampire fledglings.


But unfortunately, I couldn't stand the authors' writing style or character development. Zoey, the main character, is almost sickeningly perfect (pretty yet modest, confident in herself yet supportive of others, nice and cool, gets the hottest guy in the school but still doesn't have an overinflated head). She doesn't seem to have any flaws, which makes her boring to listen to. She jumps from feeling like an outcast and dealing with difficult adult situations to gushing over the hot guy at school who is like, "totally delicious", and who, unsurprisingly, likes her back. she uses words like "gihugic" (uh, what?), and over uses words such as "totally" and "ohmygod", which detracts from any kind of adult attitude she might have.


Her friends are also disappointingly two dimensional. Her best friend from the south (Zoey repeatedly mentions her "twang") is a sweet, loveable girl who is a pushover, and sticks up for herself later with the encouragement of Zoey. The twins, two girls from completely different backgrounds, races, families etc. and yet are exactly alike in every way. And of course, Damien, the gay boy who at the beginning Zoey claims is gay but in a subtle way, and yet from the rest of the book is so obviously in your face gay that it's hard to ever not notice how gay he is.


The same with Zoey's love interest Erik, and her nemesis Aphrodite (Erik's ex-girlfriend who still wants him back and is the leader of the school, of course.) who never developed fully. Erik is bland with his "totally hotness!" and nice guy tendencies. Aphrodite seems to be one of the only characters with actual personality flaws, and thus made me look forward to her appearances in the book.


Although I was very offput by the poor writing style, the plot itself is very interesting, catching, and easy to get involved in. the book is readable if you have the talent to ignore or even just cringe through the inconsistencies, the vocabulary, and the utterly boring and stereotypical characters, then you might find yourself with a book you can enjoy.

This book is not for middle school aged kids!

The only positive is that the storyline is original and fun, I began to be interested in the outcomes and care for the [one dimensional] sidekicks.

However, the writing is so much of a desperate attempt to sound teen-girl-language savvy that it's distracting.

More mature content includes reference to oral sex & multiple swear words on every page.

Bought the series after I read the Twilight set. Not quite up to par with that series. But still a decent read. Took me a while to get into them.

This book is really good if you liked Twilight then you will love the House of Nights Collection. These two ladies really know how to keep you going in these books they are awesome and I can't wait for Hunted to come out!!!! These are a must read collection Love Them!!!