House of Night - P.C Cast & Kristin Cast

The House of Night vampire series is a mother and daughter duo created by P.C Cast and Kristin Cast. It follows a young teenager, Zoey Redbird who is marked as a Vampyre (Spelling in books) fledgling during a normal day at school. In this series the only way you become a vampyre is by a biological change that begins in the body after puberty. It does not happen to all but those that it does gain a fresh and sometimes painful outline of a sapphire crescent moon on their forehead.

After this change happened to Zoey, her life was completely flipped upside down. Her mother and step-loser (nickname for stepdad) blamed her. Together they tried to cure her with religion and that only angered her more. Her best friend was afraid of her and she nearly made a snack out of her boyfriend, Heath. The only person to help her was her grandmother. Sylvia Redbird took Zoey to the house of night after a long conversation to help soothe her granddaughter.

Once in the House of Night and around other students and teachers, things go from odd, to great and then to plain old awful and disastrous. Neferet the High Priestess of the school goes from being Zoey's shoulder to lean on to her worst enemy throughout the series. In fact, it seems many things that we assume in the first five books change more than we ever would have thought. There is way too much drama to fit in this small blog, but what I will say is do not just read one. If you are going to, you'll have to finish the entire series for it all to make sense.

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Notable characters for me is Heath and Stark. Those are my favorites and make me the most emotional. Stark was a red fledgling, those are vampyres who have died and been brought back to life. Heath was Zoey's boyfriend throughout most of the book. I've honestly never cared for a character as much as I do for Heath, his love and commitment for Zoey even after she changed tugged at the strings on my heart like no other.

With that being said, Zoey did not impress me much however, I enjoyed that they kept her true to character due to her age. She may have done some things that made me wonder what in the world they put in her blood, but what we readers have to remember is that this is a young adult book and Zoey is a teenager. At her age, I think we might have handled most of her problems if not all in the same way. I don't expect her to be some bad ass vamp like Merit (Chicagoland Vampires) or Cat (Night Huntress).

One thing I do have a problem with was the relationship between her male teacher. I suppose it could be seen as a warning considering there was a lesson added in it, but I'm unsure about exposing teenagers to that type of conflict unnecessarily.

I liked how creative they were about how their vampyres grew into full adults and the henna tattoos that grew on their body when being praised by their goddess. I also liked that there were two types of vampires that were completely different from any other vampire book I've read. It has it's ups and downs, however I am surprised that I did finish the entire series. While I'm happy I did .. it's not one I'd pick up again. Not even on a rainy day. The books became repetitive and after Heath's death, it became hard to keep interested in it. But I did and yes I know that was a major spoiler and I'm sorry.

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I'll conclude by giving this story a three star rating and would suggest you check this out .. I mean, if you have absolutely nothing else to read.

~Daisy~