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House of Night #7
Burned
The next exciting instalment in the adventures of Zoey Redbird at the House of Night school for vampyres.
323 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 2010
About the author
P.C. Cast
169 books27.8k followersPC was born in the Midwest, and grew up being shuttled back-and-forth between Illinois and Oklahoma, which is where she fell in love with Quarter Horses and mythology (at about the same time). After high school, she joined the United States Air Force and began public speaking and writing. After her tour in the USAF, she taught high school for 15 years before retiring to write full time. PC is a #1 New York Times and #1 USA Today Best-Selling author and a member of the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. Her novels have been awarded the prestigious: Oklahoma Book Award, YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Prism, Holt Medallion, Daphne du Maurier, Booksellers’ Best, and the Laurel Wreath. PC is an experienced teacher and talented speaker. Ms. Cast lives in Oregon near her fabulous daughter, her adorable pack of dogs, her crazy Maine Coon, and a bunch of horses. House of Night Other World, book 4, FOUND, releases July 7th, 2020. More info to come soon about the HoN TV series!
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,515 reviews
December 28, 2010
I really don't know why I keep reading these books. Maybe I'm hoping they'll get back to being as good as the first five books in the series. They were, I don't know, cozy. But not anymore.
The whole point of this book is to deal with the events that happened at the end of Tempted. And really, that's it. It is painfully obvious that P.C. and Kristin Cast threw in that ending so they could cash in on another book resolving that ending. Quite literally, the first 250 pages of this book is every single character expressing their love for Zoey and how they must save her before the earth falls into some dark oblivion. To say the least, it was painfully boring.
For the last two books, the Casts, for some reason, have thrown in these God-awful point-of-view changes. I'm all for hearing the story from different characters' points of view. But at least do it for a purpose. The Casts switch from character to character every five pages for no apparent reason. I mean, seriously, if Stevie Rae and Rephaim are in the same room, there's no need to change the POV mid-conversation. Also, almost every character's POV is given. Kalona, Stevie Rae, Zoey, Heath, Stark, Rephaim, and Aphrodite all have their turn up at bat. It was maddening. I understand two or even three POVs, but seven is a little much.
Also, this cover is a little too fitting for this book. Stevie Rae (who was never a favorite of mine anyway) somehow becomes the main character of the story. I never, ever, thought I would say this, but I missed Zoey's point of view. She probably had ten pages of narration in the book, besides the end. Besides that, it was almost all Stevie Rae (of course, with other POVs randomly peppered in).
And what is up with all the pathetically stereotypical characters? This is basically about the whole series, but I thought I could point it out while I'm ranting. First of all, Kramisha. P.C. and Kristin, just because you throw a black character into your book doesn't mean you have to make them sound completely uneducated and idiotic. Seriously, every quote from Kramisha has blatant grammatical errors in it. And why? Because she's supposed to be a "typical black teenager?" Please. And also, Jack and Damien's relationship bothers me to no end. I'm all for homosexuality in books (and in general) but don't make it that irritatingly stereotypical. Their relationship is like a rainbow personified. And if I could shoot Jack in the face, I would.
Okay, one last thing to rant about. The glaring grammatical errors. Do these people have an editor? There were too many points where they didn't punctuate correctly, didn't punctuate at all, or had random quotation marks in the middle of nowhere. I can accept simple comma errors and the like (don't we all misuse them from time to time?), but they pulled me out of the story.
However, the ending was pretty good. Maybe it's because the ending was the only part where anything of substance happened, but still, it saved this book from getting one star.
So, overall, this book failed. The only thing it did was solve a conflict the last book created. Nothing new at all. In my opinion, just skip it and read the next book if you feel inclined to do so. You'll catch up very easily.
My love for this series has been shot to the ground, so I'm not excited for the next one. But will I buy it? Probably. :/
...an affinity for electricity? Seriously?!
The whole point of this book is to deal with the events that happened at the end of Tempted. And really, that's it. It is painfully obvious that P.C. and Kristin Cast threw in that ending so they could cash in on another book resolving that ending. Quite literally, the first 250 pages of this book is every single character expressing their love for Zoey and how they must save her before the earth falls into some dark oblivion. To say the least, it was painfully boring.
For the last two books, the Casts, for some reason, have thrown in these God-awful point-of-view changes. I'm all for hearing the story from different characters' points of view. But at least do it for a purpose. The Casts switch from character to character every five pages for no apparent reason. I mean, seriously, if Stevie Rae and Rephaim are in the same room, there's no need to change the POV mid-conversation. Also, almost every character's POV is given. Kalona, Stevie Rae, Zoey, Heath, Stark, Rephaim, and Aphrodite all have their turn up at bat. It was maddening. I understand two or even three POVs, but seven is a little much.
Also, this cover is a little too fitting for this book. Stevie Rae (who was never a favorite of mine anyway) somehow becomes the main character of the story. I never, ever, thought I would say this, but I missed Zoey's point of view. She probably had ten pages of narration in the book, besides the end. Besides that, it was almost all Stevie Rae (of course, with other POVs randomly peppered in).
And what is up with all the pathetically stereotypical characters? This is basically about the whole series, but I thought I could point it out while I'm ranting. First of all, Kramisha. P.C. and Kristin, just because you throw a black character into your book doesn't mean you have to make them sound completely uneducated and idiotic. Seriously, every quote from Kramisha has blatant grammatical errors in it. And why? Because she's supposed to be a "typical black teenager?" Please. And also, Jack and Damien's relationship bothers me to no end. I'm all for homosexuality in books (and in general) but don't make it that irritatingly stereotypical. Their relationship is like a rainbow personified. And if I could shoot Jack in the face, I would.
Okay, one last thing to rant about. The glaring grammatical errors. Do these people have an editor? There were too many points where they didn't punctuate correctly, didn't punctuate at all, or had random quotation marks in the middle of nowhere. I can accept simple comma errors and the like (don't we all misuse them from time to time?), but they pulled me out of the story.
However, the ending was pretty good. Maybe it's because the ending was the only part where anything of substance happened, but still, it saved this book from getting one star.
So, overall, this book failed. The only thing it did was solve a conflict the last book created. Nothing new at all. In my opinion, just skip it and read the next book if you feel inclined to do so. You'll catch up very easily.
My love for this series has been shot to the ground, so I'm not excited for the next one. But will I buy it? Probably. :/
...an affinity for electricity? Seriously?!
November 16, 2013
These books are fine and all but has anyone else realized that there are going to be TWELVE of them in total?! After Burned you have Stolen, Burdened, Touched, Cloaked and Wanted. No wonder they are starting to tell the story from multiple perspectives. (Speculation is now at fifteen books).
Loving the U.K. cover by the way, disappointed its not Stevie Rae like the U.S. but it will look good on my shelf anyway.
Finally, time for me to actually review it. Okay, so this took me a while to read seeing as I have to study for the state exams the Irish government insist I take.
Well, I enjoyed this far more than I thought I would, I really did. I still hate Zoey, and speaking of hate, I despise Damien, Jack, and the Twins too.
But now for things I like, Stark for one, and pretty much anything to do with Stevie Rae and Rephaim, I hope that ends well.
This book still has the shameless pop culture references and I hate the really over the top "And I suddenly realised what I must say..." moments but all in all, its a good book.
Lets just hope Rephaim, Stevie Rae and Stark get their happy endings now.
Oh, I must also compliment the authors for the research they did, although I obviously don't speak Scottish Gaelic, I definitely recognised the words that are identical to Irish.
Loving the U.K. cover by the way, disappointed its not Stevie Rae like the U.S. but it will look good on my shelf anyway.
Finally, time for me to actually review it. Okay, so this took me a while to read seeing as I have to study for the state exams the Irish government insist I take.
Well, I enjoyed this far more than I thought I would, I really did. I still hate Zoey, and speaking of hate, I despise Damien, Jack, and the Twins too.
But now for things I like, Stark for one, and pretty much anything to do with Stevie Rae and Rephaim, I hope that ends well.
This book still has the shameless pop culture references and I hate the really over the top "And I suddenly realised what I must say..." moments but all in all, its a good book.
Lets just hope Rephaim, Stevie Rae and Stark get their happy endings now.
Oh, I must also compliment the authors for the research they did, although I obviously don't speak Scottish Gaelic, I definitely recognised the words that are identical to Irish.
January 31, 2023
4.5 Stars
April 28, 2010
P.C. Cast has gone way beyond the talent she has shown in previous books in her writing of the most recent installment of the House of Night series. The multiple perspectives, introduced in the 6th book worked masterfully in telling this book's unique story. The way that the storyline is told is both surprising as it is breathtaking. There was a point in this book where P.C. Cast tricked me and I absolutely loved it! When the realization hit, I was in awe of how well written the revelation was. And satisfyingly enough the reader will be just as challenged as the characters are while reading this book. As a friend once put it, "these books are like snacks." With that comparison, this book is not a snack the way the others are, and it isn't a full course meal either. Instead, it sits the reader down and shows them how to cook.
But lets go back to the first 6 books. Because without them, this book wouldn't be nearly as pointed. During the House of Night series, the reader feels a need and demand that the characters learn, make decisions, and grow. Books 1 through 6 hasn't really shown us the volume to which these characters can change. While we know that they have, we haven't ever been as intimate with the characters until this 7th book, where we are forced to look at these multi-dimensional characters and acknowledge the depth of them. Heath, Zoey, Aphrodite, Darius, Stevie-Rae, Rephaim, Stark and the big baddies (Neferet and Kalona) are the main focus and while fans of the Twins and Damien and Jack might be disappointed, the focus on the characters listed is key to this book. What's marvelous about that, though is not all characters are developed in the present, not all are even truly in the book, but each and every character mentioned takes on more meaning and becomes so much more clear than in previous books.
Now I'm a huge Stark fan and by the end of this book I don't see how anyone couldn't be, but that's not where I think this review should focus. What's more important is that I'm not a huge Zoey fan. I'm not a huge Heath fan. But by the end of this book I was. Zoey's character changes so much that the reader may expect whiplash yet the story is crafted so that her extraordinary progresses reads naturally. Heath's character is developed simply by reviewing the constants in his relations with everyone in the book. It does not serve to make any reader feel stupid, but rather does cause a reader to stop and think about how Heath really doesn't change so much as our understanding of him did.
Stark. Where to even begin. We learn his history, his future and glimpse into his mind in the present all at once while somehow carrying his load for him. His role in this book is so well written and so well played that this character really shines.
Those of you interested in Stevie-Rae and the inevitable dilemma of Rephaim will not be disappointed by how this story-line, so loosely and tightly mingled with Zoey's is developed and expressed.
And that firecracker Aphrodite? If you think she had a strong voice in all of the rest of the books, her voice is even stronger, if that can even be conceived, in this one. Another spin in the story line helps develop her character in remarkable ways as well.
Here are the most important themes of the book: The act of wishing vs. doing, disguise, the power of mistakes, the power that everyone has inside of us born out of the path we choose, and ultimately, the power not so much of free will but more of choice. Every choice in this book counts.
But lets go back to the first 6 books. Because without them, this book wouldn't be nearly as pointed. During the House of Night series, the reader feels a need and demand that the characters learn, make decisions, and grow. Books 1 through 6 hasn't really shown us the volume to which these characters can change. While we know that they have, we haven't ever been as intimate with the characters until this 7th book, where we are forced to look at these multi-dimensional characters and acknowledge the depth of them. Heath, Zoey, Aphrodite, Darius, Stevie-Rae, Rephaim, Stark and the big baddies (Neferet and Kalona) are the main focus and while fans of the Twins and Damien and Jack might be disappointed, the focus on the characters listed is key to this book. What's marvelous about that, though is not all characters are developed in the present, not all are even truly in the book, but each and every character mentioned takes on more meaning and becomes so much more clear than in previous books.
Now I'm a huge Stark fan and by the end of this book I don't see how anyone couldn't be, but that's not where I think this review should focus. What's more important is that I'm not a huge Zoey fan. I'm not a huge Heath fan. But by the end of this book I was. Zoey's character changes so much that the reader may expect whiplash yet the story is crafted so that her extraordinary progresses reads naturally. Heath's character is developed simply by reviewing the constants in his relations with everyone in the book. It does not serve to make any reader feel stupid, but rather does cause a reader to stop and think about how Heath really doesn't change so much as our understanding of him did.
Stark. Where to even begin. We learn his history, his future and glimpse into his mind in the present all at once while somehow carrying his load for him. His role in this book is so well written and so well played that this character really shines.
Those of you interested in Stevie-Rae and the inevitable dilemma of Rephaim will not be disappointed by how this story-line, so loosely and tightly mingled with Zoey's is developed and expressed.
And that firecracker Aphrodite? If you think she had a strong voice in all of the rest of the books, her voice is even stronger, if that can even be conceived, in this one. Another spin in the story line helps develop her character in remarkable ways as well.
Here are the most important themes of the book: The act of wishing vs. doing, disguise, the power of mistakes, the power that everyone has inside of us born out of the path we choose, and ultimately, the power not so much of free will but more of choice. Every choice in this book counts.
February 8, 2017
I absolutly loved the book before this book. The only problems I had with it were that.................. 1.) Zoey and Stark didn't seem like they got enough time together which made it seem like they were growing apart. 2.) Stark and Zoey need to be together. Period. 3.) I am zo glad Heath died. He was a totally unimportant character. he just got in the way. 4.) How in the fricken world could Zoey DIE????????????? I really hope that in Burned Zoey lives and she ends up with the right person (Stark.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 14, 2010
I swore to myself that the last House of Night book would be my last. I just couldn't take Zoey and her multiple annoying boyfriends and her just as annoying friends. When Burned came out, I figure "what the hell, it looks relatively Zoey relationship free" Well, yes it was relatively that, but I guess BFF Stevie Rae just had to step up and fill Zoey's vacant shoes and have the boyfriend issue, but not with boys, but with a boy and a bird. Sorry, half bird, half man - whatever, he has a friggin beak, he's a bird. But of course there's some hot indian boy hiding in him that I'm sure Nix will turn him into in the next book or 2 so Stevie Rae can also have a hot boy. They all have hot boys, can't leave her out. Can't be a part of House of Night without a hot boy. Can you tell I'm sick of this story and now declare that "I WILL NOT READ ANOTHER OF THESE STORIES, SO HELP ME GODDESS!" This book was NOT for me - this series was NOT for me, yet i suffered myself through it as far as i could go. My disclaimer as always, it might not have been for me, but it could be for you - read it and find out, if you can stomach it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 25, 2011
I love this series. I have never felt so connected to a set of characters. Whenever I'm reading one of these books I always feel like I'm right there and that zoey and her gang are my friends. These books bring me happiness, sadness, anger, serenity, & laughter. I always regret finishing one and always enjoy picking up another. I am ecstatic to hear that there are more books to come and even more ecstatic to hear that they are working on making them into films. I say keep up the good work P.C. Cast. Keepthe books coming and bring on the movies!!
April 28, 2010
Just want to see how the story end.
February 8, 2011
***SPOILER ALERT!!!***
Zoey's soul is shattered and it will only take two people in her life to save her soul; Heath and of course Stark. To be honest, I pretty tired of the whole 'I can't leave you Heath! I love you!' I was jumping up and down on my bed when Stark finally was part of her life.
Aprodite of course was hilarious! It was kind of cool for her to have some parts and see her point of view in this whole mess. We got to know her better and loved her even more.
Stevie Ray has a couple of parts (most of the book) that shows her point of view and lets us know a little bit about her life. Honestly, with the who Rephaim being a monster, just reminds me of the beauty and the beast. I sort of gotten annoyed with Stevie Ray and her rambling.
Erik Night. Idiot. Period.
The gay love birds, Damen and Jack, lovely and sweet. Loved them.
The Twins? Annoying.
Neferet. Can somebody kill her already?
Kalona. And avenging fallen angel. Sexy. Hot. Obsessed with Zoey. Is he going to turn good anytime soon?
Zoey's soul is shattered and it will only take two people in her life to save her soul; Heath and of course Stark. To be honest, I pretty tired of the whole 'I can't leave you Heath! I love you!' I was jumping up and down on my bed when Stark finally was part of her life.
Aprodite of course was hilarious! It was kind of cool for her to have some parts and see her point of view in this whole mess. We got to know her better and loved her even more.
Stevie Ray has a couple of parts (most of the book) that shows her point of view and lets us know a little bit about her life. Honestly, with the who Rephaim being a monster, just reminds me of the beauty and the beast. I sort of gotten annoyed with Stevie Ray and her rambling.
Erik Night. Idiot. Period.
The gay love birds, Damen and Jack, lovely and sweet. Loved them.
The Twins? Annoying.
Neferet. Can somebody kill her already?
Kalona. And avenging fallen angel. Sexy. Hot. Obsessed with Zoey. Is he going to turn good anytime soon?
January 2, 2010
i cant wait till this comes out!! the end was way too suspencefull! ahhhhhhhh! i cant wait till may!
January 11, 2019
The book starts right after the dramatic events that happened at the end of Tempted. So expect again lots of teenage drama in this book.
Heath is gone and Zoey's soul has been shattered. She is transferred to the Otherworld where she has only a few days to return or be lost forever. Everyone will try to save her.
This is the first time Zoe is not featured on the book cover and that's because Stevie-Ray has become somehow the centre character of the story. She cannot really help Zoe, but her lovelife is blooming.
I love the Stevie Rae-Rephaim romance in this book!
Also if you are a fan of Stark, you will not be disappointed by his presence in this book.
“Zoey, my Ace, my bann ri shi’, my queen—I choose to accept it all and to follow the way of honor. That’s the only way I can be the Warrior you need me to be. This I swear.”
Heath is gone and Zoey's soul has been shattered. She is transferred to the Otherworld where she has only a few days to return or be lost forever. Everyone will try to save her.
This is the first time Zoe is not featured on the book cover and that's because Stevie-Ray has become somehow the centre character of the story. She cannot really help Zoe, but her lovelife is blooming.
I love the Stevie Rae-Rephaim romance in this book!
Also if you are a fan of Stark, you will not be disappointed by his presence in this book.
“Zoey, my Ace, my bann ri shi’, my queen—I choose to accept it all and to follow the way of honor. That’s the only way I can be the Warrior you need me to be. This I swear.”
May 14, 2010
When the book blurb is that long, it’s a bit redundant for me to reiterate what happened isn’t it? ha.
Zoey is trapped in the Otherworld due to her soul shattering when Heath is killed by Kalona. Parts of her soul are scattered & all of her friends must work to first make her give up Heath & two put the pieces of herself back together before her body dies. In the meantime, Neferet has put Kalona in a trance like state to make sure Zoey dies. Then we have Stevie Ray dealing with her feelings for Rephaim in Tulsa & the other red fledglings who are causing all sorts of trouble.
I have to tell you all the honest truth, I did not enjoy this book at all. A few times I almost put it down & gave up on it. I found there were too many POV’s & it just didn’t flow properly in my head since they just jumped around. There’s Zoey, but she’s off as her souls shattered, Stark, Stevie Ray, Kalona & sometimes we hear from Heath & Aphrodite. I usually enjoy multiple POV’s & I like the House of Night Series, but this was just too much IMO. It was so choppy, you forgot what the heck that person before POV was, add to that excessive swearing that there was no need for.
And if you weren’t already confused by the multiple POV’s, lets throw in Scottland so we can use the dialect. Lovely.
The pace? Wait what pace? Snails crawl faster, honestly it was slow going. I read pretty fast, but this took me 5 days to read because it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It was more filler than substance & plot, I get it save Zoey.
On top of it, this is a teen series but the language used was more tailored to pre-teens. It’s repetitive & everything is explained over & over again which makes the reader feel uneducated or unable to grasp what the authors were talking about. While the HoN series was always repetitive (the Twins anyone?) this is an all new level of irritation for me. The cake at the end? Nothing was resolved.
Either way, I am Burned & done with this series. I really can’t put it any nicer.
Zoey is trapped in the Otherworld due to her soul shattering when Heath is killed by Kalona. Parts of her soul are scattered & all of her friends must work to first make her give up Heath & two put the pieces of herself back together before her body dies. In the meantime, Neferet has put Kalona in a trance like state to make sure Zoey dies. Then we have Stevie Ray dealing with her feelings for Rephaim in Tulsa & the other red fledglings who are causing all sorts of trouble.
I have to tell you all the honest truth, I did not enjoy this book at all. A few times I almost put it down & gave up on it. I found there were too many POV’s & it just didn’t flow properly in my head since they just jumped around. There’s Zoey, but she’s off as her souls shattered, Stark, Stevie Ray, Kalona & sometimes we hear from Heath & Aphrodite. I usually enjoy multiple POV’s & I like the House of Night Series, but this was just too much IMO. It was so choppy, you forgot what the heck that person before POV was, add to that excessive swearing that there was no need for.
And if you weren’t already confused by the multiple POV’s, lets throw in Scottland so we can use the dialect. Lovely.
The pace? Wait what pace? Snails crawl faster, honestly it was slow going. I read pretty fast, but this took me 5 days to read because it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It was more filler than substance & plot, I get it save Zoey.
On top of it, this is a teen series but the language used was more tailored to pre-teens. It’s repetitive & everything is explained over & over again which makes the reader feel uneducated or unable to grasp what the authors were talking about. While the HoN series was always repetitive (the Twins anyone?) this is an all new level of irritation for me. The cake at the end? Nothing was resolved.
Either way, I am Burned & done with this series. I really can’t put it any nicer.
January 15, 2011
The House of Night Series is filled with drama. At times I feel im reading a teenage soap-opera. But It is highly addicting. And as the series continue I feel that each books gets darker and each of the characters get more entangled in conflicts but they mature.
I specially started to enjoy the series more when the different point of views of the characters started to appear. I found that Aphrodite, Stevie Rae and Stark are complex and interesting characters.
In the beginning I found Stevie Rae an annoying character but after tempted I started falling for her and I absolutely loved her in Burned.
Burned is by far the best book in the series so far. (SPOILER ALERT) I found Rephaim and Stevie Rae's story to be far more interesting than Zoey's. Don't get me wrong I still love Zoey and Stark but Stevie Rae/ Rephaim go through something so beautiful gradually. Its like the beauty and the beast story. I'm hoping Rephaim turns human and gets together with Stevie Rae! Love them!!!
I specially started to enjoy the series more when the different point of views of the characters started to appear. I found that Aphrodite, Stevie Rae and Stark are complex and interesting characters.
In the beginning I found Stevie Rae an annoying character but after tempted I started falling for her and I absolutely loved her in Burned.
Burned is by far the best book in the series so far. (SPOILER ALERT) I found Rephaim and Stevie Rae's story to be far more interesting than Zoey's. Don't get me wrong I still love Zoey and Stark but Stevie Rae/ Rephaim go through something so beautiful gradually. Its like the beauty and the beast story. I'm hoping Rephaim turns human and gets together with Stevie Rae! Love them!!!
December 27, 2009
i know its going to be good!but does anybody think that p.c cast should release the first chapter? pleeeaaasse?
August 6, 2013
To see full review click here.
At this point, I can't even make a decent drinking game for these books because they've just gotten so bad and incoherent. So if you want to get drunk off of this one (which I'm sure you do) just get drunk anytime you're wondering what the hell is going on. It's that simple.
With that out of the way, let's talk about Burned the seventh shitty installment of the hideous House of Night series.
Oh, and if you want to know what the rating is no freaking stars. Because I had to go on Wikipedia and review several reviews to get a sense of what was going on and I took Civil freaking Procedure. The concept of personal jurisdiction makes more sense than this shit.
So what's the plot: Take any shitty (and yes, that seems to be the word of choice for this review) supernatural show that you'd see on the WB/CW where the TSTL main character goes into limbo and learns that she has to move on and you have this book. Oh, also throw in some culturally offensive Scottish versions of Amazons and add in some side plot with Stevie Rae that no one gives a fuck about and that's the whole book. If you want a less profanity induced summary that is more coherent here's a link to the Wiki Page.
Alright, the rest of this installment to this feature is going to be mostly focused on the writing itself. I might talk about some spoilers-regarding the world building- but it will be vague at best because even with the Wiki summary I'm still not sure what I read.
I think this was in part because of the random POV changes, the fusion of mythologies that made no freaking sense, and the fact that this whole book just seemed to lack structure.
After reading about six of these books, I thought I knew what to expect. Shitty recap chapter with shitty stereotype characters introducing themselves as their respected characters. You follow that by our asshole protagonist (a.k.a. Zoey Montgomery-that's her legal name and I'm sticking to it) having some life crisis that usually involves a boy. We then find out she has six million guys interested in her and the evil teacher is after her for no reason. Stupid dialogue goes on for about four hundred pages (okay really two hundred) and then some Captain Planet shit goes down before we get a stupid ass cliffie before the book ends.
This book is.....well, different.
You'd think that's a good thing. Because these books are in desperate need of some originality, but no. The Casts version of originality is a scary place on Earth.
Honestly, it was a dumb mistake in the first place to put Zoey in limbo. I hate that trope. I really do. Maybe it's because I've watched too many WB/CW shows or daytime soaps but these scenes always come off as contrived and just plain stupid. They're pointless. You know that the characters will always come back from the brink of death because the TV show has to continue and on soaps you'll usually know a month or two before hand whether or not the actor is going to leave or not. And in this case, we know that there are going to be twenty more of these things coming out so Zoey is going to live much to my displeasure.
So the whole plot of this book.
Pointless and stupid.
And if you were a die hard fan of this shit (and there are some people out there who enjoy these books believe it or not) then you're going to be even more confused with what's going on with the eighth installment because you had to wait twice as long to get your cliffhangers resolved.
Oh, well, Zoey will probably be obsessing about another boy. And they'll probably throw in Egyptian or Norse mythology just to fuck up everything a little bit more and rape another one of the world's religions for a good measure.
Okay, that wasn't the best transition sentence, but I have to talked about the f-ed up mythology in this series. Its something you just can't avoid. I'm all for fusion when it comes to mythologies, but you have to have some reasons for the fusion and you have to explain how they collide instead of randomly throwing them together. In the House of Night they practically throw every religion and mythology you can think about and more often than not they get things wrong about said religion. Like, for instance, the Casts think Catholics worship Mary and view her as a deity. WTF!?!?!?!?!
Yes, the Virgin Mary is a prominent figure in the Catholic religion, but she's not viewed as a deity. She's simply the mother of Christ. Honestly, I really get annoyed with this when writers do this because its just pure ignorance and laziness. If you Google it you'll find plenty of Catholic websites that will tell you that the religion does not worship the mother of God. Its not rocket science. Plus, if you talk to a Catholic (and yes, they do exist in Oklahoma) I'm sure they'll tell you this.
Sigh.....
It's not only the Catholic religion that gets a bashing its any other religion and for that matter culture as well. Another of the recipients: Scotland.
The portrayal of Scotland in this book, sort of cement my theory that the Casts are the reason that most people hate America and....well, that they were behind My Immortal (the hilariously bad Harry Potter fan fic). Not only do the Casts decide that they are going to show us how the Scottish talk by writing some interesting dialect that I'm pretty sure is only spoken my illiterate trolls on World of Warcraft, but there's also a rift off of Wonder Woman's home country of Themycira except these Amazons live on the Isle of Skye (somehow I don't think battle armor's going to be comfortable there). Oh, add in a line by Iron Man (better know as the fourth love interest, Stark) "because I love her" you'll be having some rather interesting fan fic flashbacks throughout this.
Oh, Tara Gillesbie, it's nice to see you did succeed in life.
It's sort of sad that I find so many comparisons with that fan fic to this series but they keep popping up. And while at first made these references purely in jest, now I am actually starting to wonder especially after I read this installment.
Its not just the ridiculous plot, stupid characters, and dumb ass world building that make this particular installment unbearable, its the multiple changes in POV with massive info dumps that made my head explode. I actually commented, in one of my status updates, that I thought this wasn't the final version. Okay, I know it is the final version of the book. It's been out for a few years now, but it reads like an outline or a draft. I almost wonder if one of the Casts got to caught up in real life if they just cut and paste their notes onto whatever version of the story they were sending to their editor. And their editor had other stuff to deal with (like eating Twinkies) that this got a pass. That's sort of what I think happened. It is the only scenario that makes any sense because honestly this just seemed so half assed.
Yes, I get you can successfully use different POVs in novels, but the fact that the first five volumes of this book were written in first person and the sixth was written mostly in third person. This is a huge jump. Maybe it would make more sense if this was a spinoff of the original series. I could actually understand that and maybe all the blanks I was drawing would make some sense but nope....just nope.
Honestly, if I wasn't so goal oriented I'd quit doing this to myself already. I'm not enjoying these books. They remind me a lot like Full House. With each progressing installment it gets worse and worse. I am really interested in people who are fans of these books. Why do you like them? Was the seventh installment coherent to you? Have you read My Immortal and are secretly laughing at the fact that you know who the real Tara Gillesbie is?
Whatever. You guys know I'm going to read the next one. And I'll probably be ranting about it more than I did about this one. But really if you like these books skip this one, you're not missing much except stupid limbo scenes and offensive religious and ethnic stereotypes.
At this point, I can't even make a decent drinking game for these books because they've just gotten so bad and incoherent. So if you want to get drunk off of this one (which I'm sure you do) just get drunk anytime you're wondering what the hell is going on. It's that simple.
With that out of the way, let's talk about Burned the seventh shitty installment of the hideous House of Night series.
Oh, and if you want to know what the rating is no freaking stars. Because I had to go on Wikipedia and review several reviews to get a sense of what was going on and I took Civil freaking Procedure. The concept of personal jurisdiction makes more sense than this shit.
So what's the plot: Take any shitty (and yes, that seems to be the word of choice for this review) supernatural show that you'd see on the WB/CW where the TSTL main character goes into limbo and learns that she has to move on and you have this book. Oh, also throw in some culturally offensive Scottish versions of Amazons and add in some side plot with Stevie Rae that no one gives a fuck about and that's the whole book. If you want a less profanity induced summary that is more coherent here's a link to the Wiki Page.
Alright, the rest of this installment to this feature is going to be mostly focused on the writing itself. I might talk about some spoilers-regarding the world building- but it will be vague at best because even with the Wiki summary I'm still not sure what I read.
I think this was in part because of the random POV changes, the fusion of mythologies that made no freaking sense, and the fact that this whole book just seemed to lack structure.
After reading about six of these books, I thought I knew what to expect. Shitty recap chapter with shitty stereotype characters introducing themselves as their respected characters. You follow that by our asshole protagonist (a.k.a. Zoey Montgomery-that's her legal name and I'm sticking to it) having some life crisis that usually involves a boy. We then find out she has six million guys interested in her and the evil teacher is after her for no reason. Stupid dialogue goes on for about four hundred pages (okay really two hundred) and then some Captain Planet shit goes down before we get a stupid ass cliffie before the book ends.
This book is.....well, different.
You'd think that's a good thing. Because these books are in desperate need of some originality, but no. The Casts version of originality is a scary place on Earth.
Honestly, it was a dumb mistake in the first place to put Zoey in limbo. I hate that trope. I really do. Maybe it's because I've watched too many WB/CW shows or daytime soaps but these scenes always come off as contrived and just plain stupid. They're pointless. You know that the characters will always come back from the brink of death because the TV show has to continue and on soaps you'll usually know a month or two before hand whether or not the actor is going to leave or not. And in this case, we know that there are going to be twenty more of these things coming out so Zoey is going to live much to my displeasure.
So the whole plot of this book.
Pointless and stupid.
And if you were a die hard fan of this shit (and there are some people out there who enjoy these books believe it or not) then you're going to be even more confused with what's going on with the eighth installment because you had to wait twice as long to get your cliffhangers resolved.
Oh, well, Zoey will probably be obsessing about another boy. And they'll probably throw in Egyptian or Norse mythology just to fuck up everything a little bit more and rape another one of the world's religions for a good measure.
Okay, that wasn't the best transition sentence, but I have to talked about the f-ed up mythology in this series. Its something you just can't avoid. I'm all for fusion when it comes to mythologies, but you have to have some reasons for the fusion and you have to explain how they collide instead of randomly throwing them together. In the House of Night they practically throw every religion and mythology you can think about and more often than not they get things wrong about said religion. Like, for instance, the Casts think Catholics worship Mary and view her as a deity. WTF!?!?!?!?!
Yes, the Virgin Mary is a prominent figure in the Catholic religion, but she's not viewed as a deity. She's simply the mother of Christ. Honestly, I really get annoyed with this when writers do this because its just pure ignorance and laziness. If you Google it you'll find plenty of Catholic websites that will tell you that the religion does not worship the mother of God. Its not rocket science. Plus, if you talk to a Catholic (and yes, they do exist in Oklahoma) I'm sure they'll tell you this.
Sigh.....
It's not only the Catholic religion that gets a bashing its any other religion and for that matter culture as well. Another of the recipients: Scotland.
The portrayal of Scotland in this book, sort of cement my theory that the Casts are the reason that most people hate America and....well, that they were behind My Immortal (the hilariously bad Harry Potter fan fic). Not only do the Casts decide that they are going to show us how the Scottish talk by writing some interesting dialect that I'm pretty sure is only spoken my illiterate trolls on World of Warcraft, but there's also a rift off of Wonder Woman's home country of Themycira except these Amazons live on the Isle of Skye (somehow I don't think battle armor's going to be comfortable there). Oh, add in a line by Iron Man (better know as the fourth love interest, Stark) "because I love her" you'll be having some rather interesting fan fic flashbacks throughout this.
Oh, Tara Gillesbie, it's nice to see you did succeed in life.
It's sort of sad that I find so many comparisons with that fan fic to this series but they keep popping up. And while at first made these references purely in jest, now I am actually starting to wonder especially after I read this installment.
Its not just the ridiculous plot, stupid characters, and dumb ass world building that make this particular installment unbearable, its the multiple changes in POV with massive info dumps that made my head explode. I actually commented, in one of my status updates, that I thought this wasn't the final version. Okay, I know it is the final version of the book. It's been out for a few years now, but it reads like an outline or a draft. I almost wonder if one of the Casts got to caught up in real life if they just cut and paste their notes onto whatever version of the story they were sending to their editor. And their editor had other stuff to deal with (like eating Twinkies) that this got a pass. That's sort of what I think happened. It is the only scenario that makes any sense because honestly this just seemed so half assed.
Yes, I get you can successfully use different POVs in novels, but the fact that the first five volumes of this book were written in first person and the sixth was written mostly in third person. This is a huge jump. Maybe it would make more sense if this was a spinoff of the original series. I could actually understand that and maybe all the blanks I was drawing would make some sense but nope....just nope.
Honestly, if I wasn't so goal oriented I'd quit doing this to myself already. I'm not enjoying these books. They remind me a lot like Full House. With each progressing installment it gets worse and worse. I am really interested in people who are fans of these books. Why do you like them? Was the seventh installment coherent to you? Have you read My Immortal and are secretly laughing at the fact that you know who the real Tara Gillesbie is?
Whatever. You guys know I'm going to read the next one. And I'll probably be ranting about it more than I did about this one. But really if you like these books skip this one, you're not missing much except stupid limbo scenes and offensive religious and ethnic stereotypes.
January 3, 2016
We’re back with our fourth and last book in this Month of House of Night, Burned. Praise Jesus and high-five Jenova you guys, this is it! One more review and we’re done for as long as I can keep putting a return to this series off. Let’s get this shit over with!
So when we last left Zoey, her soul had been inexplicably “shattered” upon witnessing the death of her childhood boytoy, Heath. In a refreshing change of pace, Burned picks up not moments after the end of Tempted, but moments before! Woo, shaking up the formula!
We open on Kalona, giving a boring mental monologue as he prepares to snap Heath’s neck.
Craaaaaaaaaaaawling in my skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.
Christ, Kalona, get a LiveJournal.
I’m also side-eying that “didn’t particularly want to kill the boy” line – I feel like it’s meant to soften the blow of what he’s doing, as though a supposed lack of active malice on Kalona’s part somehow makes killing the target of your sexual aggression’s boyfriend less terrible.
Anyway, he means to murder Heath on the dl, but as we already know, Zoey shows up. She knocks him off the wall into the ocean with her big ball o’spirit, and for a moment, Kalona considers letting himself drown and bringing this terrible series to an end, because oh no, Zoey knows he killed her boyfriend and really for real hates him now, what a completely unforseeable consequence of his actions!
But of course, we’ve still got like six books to go, so before he can do us all a favor, he feels Zoey’s soul shatter, and–
And this is where even Kalona starts actively participating in the “let’s blame Neferet for everything” sham Cast is trying to shape this into. In fact, if this chapter had a subtitle, it would be: No Really Guys, Even Kalona Thinks This is All Neferet’s Fault, and Also She is the Worst.
It’s all about attempting to illustrate the dynamic between Neferet and Kalona – that Kalona is a sad, wounded woobie who’s making bad choices out of the completely sympathetic motivators of defiance, bitterness, and frustrated sexual longing, while Neferet is the root of all bitchy-bitch evil who’s scheming and machinating and in league with the devil and in over her head.
That’s the dynamic in a nutshell: Neferet, so ~cold~ and ~calculating~, plying Kalona with her ~love talk~ and Kalona squishing himself up against the door on the opposite side of the car like “I AM REGRETTING MY DECISION TO RIDE WITH YOU SO HARD RIGHT NOW.”
It’s meant to make us more sympathetic to Kalona, I guess, because he’s just an angry child going along with Neferet’s plan, but really it just makes him a less respectable villain.
On the flip side, this chapter got damn close to making me Team Neferet. Seriously, I could get down with Neferet as a villain, for the exact traits that Cast is using to try and demonize her: she’s aggressive, she’s calculating, she’s power-hungry and sexual, and she has no problem using the narrative’s precious woobie as a tool to further her ambitions. She’s everything that House of Night tells us a ‘good woman’ shouldn’t be, and you know your series morality is fucked when the much-maligned epitome of evil is easier to root for than your goddess-blessed protagonist.
Clearly Neferet has just recently recognized how utterly fucked this world is. I’m sure if I had to spend centuries among these idiotic characters, serving this terrible goddess, I’d want to burn it all down, too.
That said, even putting aside all of Cast’s awful evil-woman coding, I still can’t bring myself to completely get on board with Neferet as a character, mostly because of her romantic rivalry with Zoey. Fighting with a teenager over who draws the biggest boner out of some piece of shit immortal rapist? You can keep it. That’s one misogynistic trope too many.
Anyway, Kalona explains that Zoey’s spirit is shattered and she’s basically dead, forget about her, baby, but Neferet isn’t buying it.
I mean, once, it’s done that once, and it took thousands of years. I wouldn’t call that a ‘habit’.
Neferet wants to make sure Kalona finishes the job, so she takes advantage of his weakened state and uses ~the power of Darkness~ to send his spirit into the Otherworld to end Zoey once and for all.
See what I mean? Relatable motivations and goals, man.
Kalona’s not super thrilled, because being in the ~spirit realm~ too long could damage his body or some shit, but Neferet has zero fucks to give.
Yeah, that’s the other thing. They’re bringing up this idea that Neferet has bitten off more than she can chew, and that it’s going to come back and bite her in the ass in the end, because god forbid we have a female villain who’s competent and in control and at the top of the food chain. Nah, she’s gotta be a naive little girl who’s ~playing with forces she doesn’t understand~. Ugh, you can keep that, too.
Okay 1) gross, and 2) do you get it yet, guys? Neferet is so evil that even KALONA thinks she’s lost her shit! I hope you understand now who the TRUE VILLAIN of this series is, because it’s definitely not the immortal rapist, nope! It’s the nasty lady who uses her vagina for sex!
Moving on, we get this awkward-as-fuck motivation dump from Kalona, while somewhere in Hell, the Robot Devil sobs.
Neferet uses it to prod Kalona into action, evoking his one respectable line in the entire chapter:
Seriously, I’ll take ambitious, remorselessly evil shithead villains over pity-me woobies any goddamn day of the week.
Finally, he and Neferet make the poorly-worded contract that will undoubtedly factor in to his redemption endgame.
Loop, meet hole.
I think we can all see where this is going.
Thus concludes our time with the villains, catapulting Kalona out of the story until literally the last couple of chapters. Yeah,despite what the set-up would have you believing, Burned isn’t so much about Zoey re-assembling the shattered fragments of her soul in the Otherworld as it is giving Cast the opportunity to retcon a bunch of bastardized Celtic and vaguely Taoist concepts into this already mythologically confused world, via dual plotlines that follow Stevie Rae&Co in Oklahoma, and Stark et al. in Italy and Scotland.
We kick off the story proper in Oklahoma, where Stevie Rae is roused from sleeping off the rooftop deep-fry she got at the end of Tempted to hear the “bad” news about Zoey.
Okay, I know House of Night is a series of ass-pulls and hand-waving when it comes to why and how things happen, but seriously, did we get ANY foreshadowing or background whatsoever on this whole “shattering” thing before it happened to Zoey? All I remember was that one line from the poem about being shattered and believing or some shit, so I feel like I’m pretty justified in feeling like this phenomenon came out of nowhere.
Yet according to all the good vampires of House of Night volume seven, this is a relatively normal occurrence. It happens often enough that everyone knows what it is and what it means, and there’s an established history with several case studies to refer to. People’s souls just rip themselves from their bodies on a regular basis, price of being a vampire, right?
Also, can we just all take a moment to appreciate that Dragon Lankford saw his wife of literal centuries murdered in front of him and didn’t explode into a million pieces, but Zoey saw her high school boyfriend killed and hit the eject button immediately?
At any rate, Stevie Rae decides that her first course of action is to talk to Rephaim, because when she was super-sadfaced and crying over Zoey’s situation earlier, he used his vaguely-defined immortal birdman powers to comfort her and call her to him. Plus, as Kalona’s right hand man and a former spirit himself, she figures he’s her best source for gathering some useful spirit-world-and-Darkness-related information.
This is the Default Excuse that the book gives Stevie Rae so that she can continue her relationship with Rephaim, which plays out almost exactly the same way every time she gets a chapter. She sneaks away from House of Night against someone’s wishes, and meets up with Rephaim to pump him for “information”. They get a few lovey-dovey scenes, fight over something or another, and then one or both leave in a huff, acting like they’ve broken up forever. Wash, rinse, repeat every three chapters.
But for this particular meeting, Stevie Rae is content nursing her horrifying birdman fetish.
BUT HIS BODY IS JUST SO BIRD!
I love love love how the book very pointedly avoids mentioning Rephaim’s bird torso. They talk about his eyes, his human arms and legs, even his wings sometimes, but there’s jack shit about the beak, the creepy bird tongue, or his horizontally-oriented, bird-shaped body. Nada. Because then we would realize even more clearly that this is fuckin’ weird.
Anyway, they get to chit-chatting, and Rephaim jumps hard on the “blame Neferet” train.
Christ, what a meaningless differentiation to toss in there. “Oh, sure, Kalona’s angry and a rapist, but That Bitch Neferet hates people, that’s super dangerous.” WE GET IT, NEFERET IS WORSE THAN KALONA, YOU CAN STOP MAKING UP BULLSHIT JUSTIFICATIONS FOR THAT NOW, THANKS.
Together, they suss out what Neferet’s done with her poorly-worded genie contract, Rephaim just happening to have all of the relevant information to lead him to the correct explanation, because fuck it.
And then, and then you guys, Stevie Rae has what is quite possibly the dumbest line in this entire fucking series.
Are you ready for it?
Darkness, you mean like the opposite of light?
Darkness, you mean like the opposite of light?
Darkness, you mean like the opposite of light?
I’m dead. I’m dead, my brain has shattered, and I’ve gone to the Otherworld, a magical land where things are heavenly and perfect and House of Night doesn’t exist, and people don’t say such extraordinarily dumb things, and I can die in peace don’t come for me.
My resentful resurrection + more words + at You're Killing.Us
So when we last left Zoey, her soul had been inexplicably “shattered” upon witnessing the death of her childhood boytoy, Heath. In a refreshing change of pace, Burned picks up not moments after the end of Tempted, but moments before! Woo, shaking up the formula!
We open on Kalona, giving a boring mental monologue as he prepares to snap Heath’s neck.
[Kalona] would not allow anything or anyone to get in his way, and this human boy was standing between him and what he desired. He didn’t particularly want to kill the boy; he didn’t particularly want the boy alive, either. It was a simple necessity. He didn’t feel remorse or regret. As had been the norm during the centuries since he’d fallen, Kalona felt very little.
Craaaaaaaaaaaawling in my skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.
Christ, Kalona, get a LiveJournal.
I’m also side-eying that “didn’t particularly want to kill the boy” line – I feel like it’s meant to soften the blow of what he’s doing, as though a supposed lack of active malice on Kalona’s part somehow makes killing the target of your sexual aggression’s boyfriend less terrible.
Anyway, he means to murder Heath on the dl, but as we already know, Zoey shows up. She knocks him off the wall into the ocean with her big ball o’spirit, and for a moment, Kalona considers letting himself drown and bringing this terrible series to an end, because oh no, Zoey knows he killed her boyfriend and really for real hates him now, what a completely unforseeable consequence of his actions!
But of course, we’ve still got like six books to go, so before he can do us all a favor, he feels Zoey’s soul shatter, and–
Not Zoey! He’d never meant to cause her harm. Even through all of Neferet’s machinations, through all of the Tsi Sgili’s manipulations and plans, he’d held tight to the knowledge that, in spite of everything, he would use his vast immortal powers to keep Zoey safe because ultimately she was the closest he could come to Nyx in this realm — and this was the only realm left to him.
And this is where even Kalona starts actively participating in the “let’s blame Neferet for everything” sham Cast is trying to shape this into. In fact, if this chapter had a subtitle, it would be: No Really Guys, Even Kalona Thinks This is All Neferet’s Fault, and Also She is the Worst.
It’s all about attempting to illustrate the dynamic between Neferet and Kalona – that Kalona is a sad, wounded woobie who’s making bad choices out of the completely sympathetic motivators of defiance, bitterness, and frustrated sexual longing, while Neferet is the root of all bitchy-bitch evil who’s scheming and machinating and in league with the devil and in over her head.
“No, I don’t imagine any of them felt it,” Neferet continued, in her coldest, most calculating voice. “None of them are connected to Darkness, to you, as I am. Is that not so, my love?”
“We are uniquely connected,” Kalona managed, though he suddenly wished the words were not true.
That’s the dynamic in a nutshell: Neferet, so ~cold~ and ~calculating~, plying Kalona with her ~love talk~ and Kalona squishing himself up against the door on the opposite side of the car like “I AM REGRETTING MY DECISION TO RIDE WITH YOU SO HARD RIGHT NOW.”
It’s meant to make us more sympathetic to Kalona, I guess, because he’s just an angry child going along with Neferet’s plan, but really it just makes him a less respectable villain.
On the flip side, this chapter got damn close to making me Team Neferet. Seriously, I could get down with Neferet as a villain, for the exact traits that Cast is using to try and demonize her: she’s aggressive, she’s calculating, she’s power-hungry and sexual, and she has no problem using the narrative’s precious woobie as a tool to further her ambitions. She’s everything that House of Night tells us a ‘good woman’ shouldn’t be, and you know your series morality is fucked when the much-maligned epitome of evil is easier to root for than your goddess-blessed protagonist.
Clearly Neferet has just recently recognized how utterly fucked this world is. I’m sure if I had to spend centuries among these idiotic characters, serving this terrible goddess, I’d want to burn it all down, too.
That said, even putting aside all of Cast’s awful evil-woman coding, I still can’t bring myself to completely get on board with Neferet as a character, mostly because of her romantic rivalry with Zoey. Fighting with a teenager over who draws the biggest boner out of some piece of shit immortal rapist? You can keep it. That’s one misogynistic trope too many.
Anyway, Kalona explains that Zoey’s spirit is shattered and she’s basically dead, forget about her, baby, but Neferet isn’t buying it.
“One would think it would be a death sentence,” Neferet spoke calmly as she drew more and more of the inky threads to her, “but Zoey has a terribly inconvenient habit of surviving. This time I am going to ensure she dies.”
“Zoey’s soul also has a habit of reincarnating,” he said, purposefully baiting Neferet to try to throw off her focus.
I mean, once, it’s done that once, and it took thousands of years. I wouldn’t call that a ‘habit’.
Neferet wants to make sure Kalona finishes the job, so she takes advantage of his weakened state and uses ~the power of Darkness~ to send his spirit into the Otherworld to end Zoey once and for all.
See what I mean? Relatable motivations and goals, man.
Kalona’s not super thrilled, because being in the ~spirit realm~ too long could damage his body or some shit, but Neferet has zero fucks to give.
“Then you will have to be sure you finish your task soon, so that you may return to your lovely immortal body before it is irreparably damaged.” [Neferet] smiled seductively at him. “I would very much dislike it if anything happened to your body, my love.”
“Neferet, don’t do this. You are putting into motion things that will require payment, the consequences of which even you will not want to face.”
Yeah, that’s the other thing. They’re bringing up this idea that Neferet has bitten off more than she can chew, and that it’s going to come back and bite her in the ass in the end, because god forbid we have a female villain who’s competent and in control and at the top of the food chain. Nah, she’s gotta be a naive little girl who’s ~playing with forces she doesn’t understand~. Ugh, you can keep that, too.
Kalona stared at her, understanding that Neferet was utterly, truly mad, and wondering why that madness only served to feed her power and intensify her beauty.
Okay 1) gross, and 2) do you get it yet, guys? Neferet is so evil that even KALONA thinks she’s lost her shit! I hope you understand now who the TRUE VILLAIN of this series is, because it’s definitely not the immortal rapist, nope! It’s the nasty lady who uses her vagina for sex!
Moving on, we get this awkward-as-fuck motivation dump from Kalona, while somewhere in Hell, the Robot Devil sobs.
Kalona knew she was playing on his weaknesses. Silently, he cursed himself for allowing her to have learned too much about his deepest desires. He’d trusted her, so Neferet knew that because he wasn’t Erebus he could never truly rule beside Nyx in the Otherworld, and he was driven to re-create as much of what he’d lost here in this modern world.
Neferet uses it to prod Kalona into action, evoking his one respectable line in the entire chapter:
“I choose to rule. I will always choose to rule,” he said without hesitation.
Seriously, I’ll take ambitious, remorselessly evil shithead villains over pity-me woobies any goddamn day of the week.
Finally, he and Neferet make the poorly-worded contract that will undoubtedly factor in to his redemption endgame.
When Neferet continued, her voice was magnified, swollen with power. “It is your own choice that I have sealed this oath by blood with Darkness, but should you fail me and break it—”
“I will not fail.”
Her smile was unworldly in its beauty; her eyes roiled with blood. “If you, Kalona, Fallen Warrior of Nyx, break this oath and fail in my sworn quest to destroy Zoey Redbird, fledgling High Priestess of Nyx, I shall hold dominion over your spirit for as long as you are an immortal.”
Loop, meet hole.
I think we can all see where this is going.
Thus concludes our time with the villains, catapulting Kalona out of the story until literally the last couple of chapters. Yeah,despite what the set-up would have you believing, Burned isn’t so much about Zoey re-assembling the shattered fragments of her soul in the Otherworld as it is giving Cast the opportunity to retcon a bunch of bastardized Celtic and vaguely Taoist concepts into this already mythologically confused world, via dual plotlines that follow Stevie Rae&Co in Oklahoma, and Stark et al. in Italy and Scotland.
We kick off the story proper in Oklahoma, where Stevie Rae is roused from sleeping off the rooftop deep-fry she got at the end of Tempted to hear the “bad” news about Zoey.
“Zoey’s not dead, but she saw Kalona kill Heath. She tried to stop him and couldn’t. It shattered her, Stevie Rae.” Tears had started to leak down Lenobia’s porcelain cheeks.
“Shattered her? What does that mean?”
“It means her body still breathes, but her soul is gone. When a High Priestess’s soul is shattered, it is only a matter of time before her body fades from this world, too.”
Okay, I know House of Night is a series of ass-pulls and hand-waving when it comes to why and how things happen, but seriously, did we get ANY foreshadowing or background whatsoever on this whole “shattering” thing before it happened to Zoey? All I remember was that one line from the poem about being shattered and believing or some shit, so I feel like I’m pretty justified in feeling like this phenomenon came out of nowhere.
Yet according to all the good vampires of House of Night volume seven, this is a relatively normal occurrence. It happens often enough that everyone knows what it is and what it means, and there’s an established history with several case studies to refer to. People’s souls just rip themselves from their bodies on a regular basis, price of being a vampire, right?
Dragon Lankford spoke from the open doorway to the infirmary room. His strong face was drawn and haggard with the newness of the loss of his mate, but his voice was calm and sure. “It’s about the fact that Zoey faced a grief she could not bear. And I do understand something about grief. When it shatters a soul, the path to return to the body is broken, and without the infilling of spirit, our bodies die.”
Also, can we just all take a moment to appreciate that Dragon Lankford saw his wife of literal centuries murdered in front of him and didn’t explode into a million pieces, but Zoey saw her high school boyfriend killed and hit the eject button immediately?
At any rate, Stevie Rae decides that her first course of action is to talk to Rephaim, because when she was super-sadfaced and crying over Zoey’s situation earlier, he used his vaguely-defined immortal birdman powers to comfort her and call her to him. Plus, as Kalona’s right hand man and a former spirit himself, she figures he’s her best source for gathering some useful spirit-world-and-Darkness-related information.
This is the Default Excuse that the book gives Stevie Rae so that she can continue her relationship with Rephaim, which plays out almost exactly the same way every time she gets a chapter. She sneaks away from House of Night against someone’s wishes, and meets up with Rephaim to pump him for “information”. They get a few lovey-dovey scenes, fight over something or another, and then one or both leave in a huff, acting like they’ve broken up forever. Wash, rinse, repeat every three chapters.
But for this particular meeting, Stevie Rae is content nursing her horrifying birdman fetish.
Rephaim continued to stare at her until it felt to Stevie Rae as if he was looking through her body and directly into her soul. She couldn’t look away, though, and the longer their gazes met, the harder it was for her to hold on to her anger. His eyes were just so human.
BUT HIS BODY IS JUST SO BIRD!
I love love love how the book very pointedly avoids mentioning Rephaim’s bird torso. They talk about his eyes, his human arms and legs, even his wings sometimes, but there’s jack shit about the beak, the creepy bird tongue, or his horizontally-oriented, bird-shaped body. Nada. Because then we would realize even more clearly that this is fuckin’ weird.
Anyway, they get to chit-chatting, and Rephaim jumps hard on the “blame Neferet” train.
“Neferet seduces my father and pretends to be his mate, but the only thing she really cares for is herself. Where he is filled with anger, she is filled with hatred. Hatred is a more dangerous ally.”
Christ, what a meaningless differentiation to toss in there. “Oh, sure, Kalona’s angry and a rapist, but That Bitch Neferet hates people, that’s super dangerous.” WE GET IT, NEFERET IS WORSE THAN KALONA, YOU CAN STOP MAKING UP BULLSHIT JUSTIFICATIONS FOR THAT NOW, THANKS.
Together, they suss out what Neferet’s done with her poorly-worded genie contract, Rephaim just happening to have all of the relevant information to lead him to the correct explanation, because fuck it.
Rephaim shook his head. “Father will never believe Zoey won’t eventually choose him. A-ya did, and part of the maiden still lives within Zoey’s soul.” He paused, and before Stevie Rae could ask her next question, added, “But I know how you can be certain. If Neferet is using him, she will have Father’s body bound by Darkness.”
And then, and then you guys, Stevie Rae has what is quite possibly the dumbest line in this entire fucking series.
Are you ready for it?
Rephaim shook his head. “Father will never believe Zoey won’t eventually choose him. A-ya did, and part of the maiden still lives within Zoey’s soul.” He paused, and before Stevie Rae could ask her next question, added, “But I know how you can be certain. If Neferet is using him, she will have Father’s body bound by Darkness.”
“Darkness? You mean like the opposite of light?”
Darkness, you mean like the opposite of light?
Darkness, you mean like the opposite of light?
Darkness, you mean like the opposite of light?
I’m dead. I’m dead, my brain has shattered, and I’ve gone to the Otherworld, a magical land where things are heavenly and perfect and House of Night doesn’t exist, and people don’t say such extraordinarily dumb things, and I can die in peace don’t come for me.
My resentful resurrection + more words + at You're Killing.Us
January 21, 2024
to everyone's surprise (including my own) i am rating this one.. four stars!!
this one was very enjoyable. the drama, the romance, it was WORTH it to me. definitely one of my favs of the series (which isn't rlly hard to choose...)
this book still had its problems, tho, something that should be brought up. namely-
-use of the r slur over and over
-stereotyping, the authors not knowing how to write black characters
-giant gaping plot holes/general world building from the previous books that just make no sense (like this intense war between vampyres and humans, yet somehow, Jake Gyllenhaal is a vampyre celebrity? get real😭)
this one was very enjoyable. the drama, the romance, it was WORTH it to me. definitely one of my favs of the series (which isn't rlly hard to choose...)
this book still had its problems, tho, something that should be brought up. namely-
-use of the r slur over and over
-stereotyping, the authors not knowing how to write black characters
-giant gaping plot holes/general world building from the previous books that just make no sense (like this intense war between vampyres and humans, yet somehow, Jake Gyllenhaal is a vampyre celebrity? get real😭)
June 15, 2010
LADIDAAA TIME TO REVIEW HOUSE OF NIGHT NÚMERO SIETE (and for those of you that are very Spanish-deprived, that means #7). God, I love these books. Actually, I hate them. I just love reviewing them because they are so utterly ridiculous. And I love reading them because … they are so, utterly ridiculous. I have been told that there will be 15 in the series, so we are not even halfway through yet. WA-HOOO! Although how they're going to manage to keep the plot running for that long, I have no idea. Nothing ever happens in them anyway, though, so I guess it's okay.
Alrighty so, the plot of this one: Stupid Zoey is temporarily dead and hanging out in the Otherworld with stupid Heath. Stupid stupid stupid. No one cares about them because they suck. Although I guess I should care, because Zoey is the main character. But I'm sorry. I hate her to pieces. Meanwhile, Zoey's somewhat less-stupid friends are trying to figure out a way to get her back out of her vegetable-like state. (Although why they don't want to keep her that way … beats me.) Stevie Rae has, like Zoey––her BFF (as the Casts insist on calling her … *gag*)––become a total slut. She has this thing with Raphaim, who is a decent character and all, except he has a freaky bird-head––and I mean that literally, not referring to the size of his brain. But then she also has her stupid vampire boyfriend Dallas, who she randomly has sex with on a kitchen floor after they bury a bunch of dead kids (… okay?). Aphrodite (who is now my favorite character, by far) is now all "I AM NYX'S PROPHET" which is pretty cool. I love Darius, too, btw. They are like the only good couple in the whole series. ANYWAY. Stark feels responsible for Zoey's sort-of death and wants to help get her back from the Otherworld––only problem is, he'd have to die to get there and they only have a week before Zoey dies for real. OH NO.
Alrighty so … blah blah blah I think you get the basic gist of the plot. Basically not much happens, except Zoey sits around in the Otherworld with Heath being whiny and obnoxious. Stupid stupid Heath won't even go away when he'd DEAD for goodness sake. He is still his stupid puppy-dog self, being all like "Zoeeeyyy stay in the Otherworld with meeee and we can be together foreverrrrr!!!" It's like "Uh, hello? Have you noticed that you are FREAKING DEAD?" What an idiot. Meh. And then Zoey is all like, "Oookaaayyyy. I don't really want to deal with my real-life problems anyway. TEEHEE!" What a selfish bitch. (Pardon my French.)
Zoey starts to see all the "pieces" of herself leaving bit by bit … meaning, she sees all these random versions of herself prancing about in the Otherworld. (I know, I know. More than one Zoey? I want to die, too.) So, first off she meets her nine-year-old self, who is supposedly her "joy". Nine-year-old Zoey just looks at her future self and says, "WE HAS BOOBIES. TEEHEES." Then goes on to tell a story about some girl in her third-grade class who's initials are BRA (TEEHEES.) So, what have we learned from this? Zoey gets her "joy" out of being shallow and laughing at other people's expense? Oh, what a surprise! Then Zoey meets up with this weird warrior chick, who is her strength. And whose name is Brighid. O_O AACKKK. So, if my name had an extra H in it … I would be Zoey's strength. EEW.
Stevie Rae doesn't do anything of much interest except prance around being slutty and summoning giant demon bulls out of the ground. (I don't really get it, either.)
Stark … Eh. I don't have much against him, besides the fact that he actually likes Zoey. God knows why. Why does ANYONE like her, for crying out loud? The main problem with Stark though is that he is pretty … bland. I used to like him, but now he's kind of taken on that stupid, over-dedicated boyfriend role. Plus he pretends to be better than everyone else all the time. So it's like … Okay, shut up. But he will probably be the one who ends up with Zoey, considering he is the least asshat-ish and not dead. Well, actually he is dead, technically. But, you know what I mean.
SO other random issues. I think I've totally bashed P.C. and Kristin Cast's writing style(s) before. The spelling of "vampyre", the use of the "BFF", the use of random pop culture references that will make the books completely irrelevant in like two years (In this one there were random references to "True Blood" and "Glee" … yeah, I know. Glee references in House of Night? Something is wrong with this picture …). I don't know if I've mentioned that I also hate the way they write dialogue––Especially Stevie Rae, Kramisha, and … that random dude they met in Scotland. Stevie Rae's "bumpkin" talk, Kramisha's borderline racist "black talk", and Scotland-guy's "accent" that made his dialogue almost impossible to read … Yeah. It all gives me a bit of a headache. At this point, there's not really much of a point trying to analyze the plot or the characters any further, since I've tried before and … it just doesn't work. It's like, screw it. These books make no sense and are stupid and I want to throw them out a window.
… Will I read the next book? Hell yes.
Alrighty so, the plot of this one: Stupid Zoey is temporarily dead and hanging out in the Otherworld with stupid Heath. Stupid stupid stupid. No one cares about them because they suck. Although I guess I should care, because Zoey is the main character. But I'm sorry. I hate her to pieces. Meanwhile, Zoey's somewhat less-stupid friends are trying to figure out a way to get her back out of her vegetable-like state. (Although why they don't want to keep her that way … beats me.) Stevie Rae has, like Zoey––her BFF (as the Casts insist on calling her … *gag*)––become a total slut. She has this thing with Raphaim, who is a decent character and all, except he has a freaky bird-head––and I mean that literally, not referring to the size of his brain. But then she also has her stupid vampire boyfriend Dallas, who she randomly has sex with on a kitchen floor after they bury a bunch of dead kids (… okay?). Aphrodite (who is now my favorite character, by far) is now all "I AM NYX'S PROPHET" which is pretty cool. I love Darius, too, btw. They are like the only good couple in the whole series. ANYWAY. Stark feels responsible for Zoey's sort-of death and wants to help get her back from the Otherworld––only problem is, he'd have to die to get there and they only have a week before Zoey dies for real. OH NO.
Alrighty so … blah blah blah I think you get the basic gist of the plot. Basically not much happens, except Zoey sits around in the Otherworld with Heath being whiny and obnoxious. Stupid stupid Heath won't even go away when he'd DEAD for goodness sake. He is still his stupid puppy-dog self, being all like "Zoeeeyyy stay in the Otherworld with meeee and we can be together foreverrrrr!!!" It's like "Uh, hello? Have you noticed that you are FREAKING DEAD?" What an idiot. Meh. And then Zoey is all like, "Oookaaayyyy. I don't really want to deal with my real-life problems anyway. TEEHEE!" What a selfish bitch. (Pardon my French.)
Zoey starts to see all the "pieces" of herself leaving bit by bit … meaning, she sees all these random versions of herself prancing about in the Otherworld. (I know, I know. More than one Zoey? I want to die, too.) So, first off she meets her nine-year-old self, who is supposedly her "joy". Nine-year-old Zoey just looks at her future self and says, "WE HAS BOOBIES. TEEHEES." Then goes on to tell a story about some girl in her third-grade class who's initials are BRA (TEEHEES.) So, what have we learned from this? Zoey gets her "joy" out of being shallow and laughing at other people's expense? Oh, what a surprise! Then Zoey meets up with this weird warrior chick, who is her strength. And whose name is Brighid. O_O AACKKK. So, if my name had an extra H in it … I would be Zoey's strength. EEW.
Stevie Rae doesn't do anything of much interest except prance around being slutty and summoning giant demon bulls out of the ground. (I don't really get it, either.)
Stark … Eh. I don't have much against him, besides the fact that he actually likes Zoey. God knows why. Why does ANYONE like her, for crying out loud? The main problem with Stark though is that he is pretty … bland. I used to like him, but now he's kind of taken on that stupid, over-dedicated boyfriend role. Plus he pretends to be better than everyone else all the time. So it's like … Okay, shut up. But he will probably be the one who ends up with Zoey, considering he is the least asshat-ish and not dead. Well, actually he is dead, technically. But, you know what I mean.
SO other random issues. I think I've totally bashed P.C. and Kristin Cast's writing style(s) before. The spelling of "vampyre", the use of the "BFF", the use of random pop culture references that will make the books completely irrelevant in like two years (In this one there were random references to "True Blood" and "Glee" … yeah, I know. Glee references in House of Night? Something is wrong with this picture …). I don't know if I've mentioned that I also hate the way they write dialogue––Especially Stevie Rae, Kramisha, and … that random dude they met in Scotland. Stevie Rae's "bumpkin" talk, Kramisha's borderline racist "black talk", and Scotland-guy's "accent" that made his dialogue almost impossible to read … Yeah. It all gives me a bit of a headache. At this point, there's not really much of a point trying to analyze the plot or the characters any further, since I've tried before and … it just doesn't work. It's like, screw it. These books make no sense and are stupid and I want to throw them out a window.
… Will I read the next book? Hell yes.
November 21, 2023
4/5⭐
Este es un libro que forma parte de la saga "La Casa de la Noche" como el séptimo libro y, madre mía, ya iba siendo hora de que la cosa mejorase en esta saga para variar. Si os soy sincera ya iba un poco con pies de plomo con la historia, porque si luego de seis libros la cosa no mejoraba (literal que eso ya es la mitad de la saga) es que ya no iba a hacerlo. Pero me sorprendió con lo contrario y eso es lo que me ha ayudado a disfrutarlo bien y como se debe.
La trama es mucho más compleja aquí, dejamos a un lado los retazos más infantiles y nos centramos en un ambiente más oscuro y tétrico donde no sabes cómo va a terminar todo. Bueno, puedes intuir algunas cosas porque sino no habría más libros, pero sí que te pillan de sorpresa algunos detalles y, sobre todo, que terminen bien algunos puntos que yo ya daba por perdidos. Además, otro punto a favor es que la historia avanza y no se queda estancada por los amoríos de la protagonista, así que por esa razón también me ha encantado el libro.
Los personajes me han sorprendido mucho en este libro y es que dejan a un lado las tonterías para centrarse y buscar respuestas antes de que sea demasiado tarde. Estaba tan acostumbrada a verlos más perdidos que un pez fuera del agua, que aquí me he llevado la grata sorpresa de disfrutar de sus puntos de vista y de lo que pasando entre ellos y sus objetivos en común. El romance está un poco más aparcado en este libro (cosa que agradezco bastante) y lo poco que ha habido me ha encantado porque es la primera vez que ese sentimiento me parece real en esta saga.
La pluma de las autoras toma un poco más de madurez en este libro, se dejan a un lado la comedia y la tontería de los romances y se centran más en la historia oscura de la saga y todo lo que los personajes han de hacer para salir de ahí. Me ha gustado lo bien que han reflejado las emociones de cada uno de ellos y cómo han plasmado el mundo aquí y el final de uno de los personajes icónicos de la historia.
Ahora os hablaré un poco de los personajes principales.
Por un lado tenemos a Zoey, nuestra protagonista femenina. Ella es una chica que siempre ha vivido bajo las dudas de qué era lo correcto, sobre todo en lo referente al amor y a quién merece una segunda oportunidad. Justo cuando su mente estaba segura de que quizá Kalona mereciese eso, la vida la golpeó con fuerza al arrebatarle a una de las personas más importantes de su vida por culpa de él, rompiendo en pedazos su alma en un desesperado intento de no dejar ir a quien había sido su mayor apoyo desde niños. Ahora el alma de Zoey está fragmentada y la única forma de salvarse es dejando ir a Heath aunque el dolor de su corazón al pensar en ello sea insoportable. Pero no puede hacerlo, es incapaz de renunciar a ello por lo abrupto de la situación y una parte de ella piensa que quizá no sea tan malo dejar las cosas estar e irse con Heath para siempre. Olvidando por fin todo lo malo que la apresa en una vorágine de dolor constante. ¿Podrá hallar la paz después de tanto sufrimiento? ¿O quizá la vida le esté preparando para dar un paso al frente y afrontar al fin lo que llevaba postergando tantísimo tiempo?
Zoey es un personaje que, POR PRIMERA VEZ EN TODA LA SAGA NO ME HA EXASPERADO. Y sí, lo digo con mayúsculas porque ni misma me lo creo. Me he pasado seis libros aguantándola por ser una idiota que solo pensaba en las hormonas y en los tíos y aquí, por fin, veo otra parte de ella y dejan un poco de lado los líos amorosos que, espero, que por fin se hayan terminado a estas alturas. Además, las cosas como son, si a estas alturas tiene dudas de a quién quiere con tremendo hombre que tiene a su lado como guerrero, me voy a cabrear de verdad, porque ya es de ser tonta perdida. Dejando esos detalles a un lado, me ha dado bastante pena su situación tras la pérdida de Heath y lo dolida que se encontraba. Aquí vemos un poco mejor el vínculo tan grande que Zoey tenía con Heath y cómo ambos eran incapaces de soltarse, ya no solo por amor, sino por todo lo que habían compartido juntos. No negaré que una parte de mí deseó, como Zoey, que Heath no muriese, pero por otra espero que pueda encontrar la paz que se merece ahora que al fin ha formado parte del objetivo de sanar a una Zoey rota y destrozada.
La siguiente es Stevie Rae, otra de nuestras protagonistas femeninas. Ella es una chica que siempre ha tenido claro que uno de sus objetivos era sobrellevar la maldad que se encuentra dentro de su corazón debido a su naturaleza. No es tarea fácil, pero por fin cree estar lográndolo tras muchos intentos duros y no pierde la esperanza de que todos los demás rojos encuentren la bondad y se pasen a la luz como lo hizo ella. Sin embargo, a día de hoy hay muchos secretos que está ocultando y eso puede ser contraproducente para el futuro, ya que uno de los más graves es que está vinculada con el enemigo. No sabe cómo revertir eso, no, en realidad sí lo sabe, pero se niega a hacerlo por mucho que crea que es lo correcto. Para mayores problemas también sabe que su guerrero, Dallas, y ella están en un punto de casi tener algo y ocultarle una tercera persona no le parece que sea demasiado bueno para el comienzo de una relación entre ellos. Y para finalizar está el problema de Zoey, su mejor amiga, quien ha destrozado su alma para no dejar marchar a una de las personas más importantes para ella. Hay demasiados frentes abiertos y Stevie Rae no sabe bien qué hacer ni en dónde volcar su atención, pero sea como sea, una cosa que tiene clara es que no puede dejar morir a su mejor amiga. Pase lo que pase, deben encontrar una solución pronto, ¿lo lograrán a tiempo?
Stevie Rae es un personaje que me ha gustado muchísimo en este libro, os prometo que no me espera el giro radical de su personaje y me he quedado con unas ganas tremendas de saber mucho más de ella y de lo que puede suceder. Justo cuando decía que no le estaban dando tanta importancia tomando en cuenta todo lo que parece importar su posición como una de las Rojas, encima siendo una Sacerdotisa, me sorprenden con esto y ahora solo sé que quiero más. No sé a dónde va a llevar su personaje, pero espero que le den mucho juego a la relación actual que tiene con su enemigo Rephaim y también a la posición que ella tiene como Roja y las consecuencias que eso puede traer tomando en cuenta las mentiras que ha contado para ocultar al enemigo de sus aliados. Además, otro detalle importante, es que aquí la he visto combatir y enfrentar situaciones bastante grotescas y me ha flipado, creo en lo personaje que Stevie Rae es mucho más interesante que Zoey como protagonista.
Y por último tenemos a Aphodrite, nuestra otra protagonista femenina. Ella es una chica que de las tres es la que menos protagonismo ha tenido, pero que sigue siendo bastante importante para toda la evolución de la trama. Una de las cosas que siempre ha destacado a Aphrodite es que la Diosa le arrebato sus poderes y la convirtió en una humana normal y corriente. Eso es algo que a nadie le gustaría, menos aún con los riesgos actuales que pueden acabar con su vida fácilmente, pero aun así sigue poseyendo un poder descomunal sobre sus visiones. Y ahora también parece que la Diosa Nyx puede tomar su voz y comunicarse a través de ella y de los sueños de la antigua iniciada. Y aunque es algo que la cabrea bastante, Aphrodite es consciente de que deben hacer lo imposible para salvar a Zoey, incluso si eso significa perder cierto control de su propia voz para así encontrar las respuestas a sus dudas. Lo único que hay claro de todo ello, es que para llegar a Zoey, su guerrero Stark ha de llegar al más allá y no morir en el intento. ¿Podrá Aphrodite convertirse en el punto guía que haga que las almas de Stark y Zoey vuelvan a encontrarse en el otro mundo?
Aphrodite es un personaje que de las tres chicas que tienen protagonismo en este libro, es la que menos puntos de vista tiene como tal. Creo que su papel en la saga es bastante importante pero aún no le han dado el potencial que se merece ni lo han sabido explotar bien. Quizá tiene sentido para más adelante y resulta que habrá mucho más juego con ella, pero salvo el detalle de las visiones que ayuda bastante al resto, por lo demás no tiene mucha más relevancia en la historia. Lo único que puedo decir es que me encanta la relación que tiene con Darius y que poco a poco se vaya abriendo más al resto y confiando en ellos para ser su amiga, eso hace que comprenda mejor lo insegura que era desde el inicio y la necesidad que tenía de tener a alguien a su lado.
Por otro lado tenemos a Stark, nuestro protagonista masculino. Él es un chico que desde el momento que se postró ante Zoey para hacerse su guerrero, supo que estaba vinculando su alma entera a ella y entregándole lo único que le quedaba de sí mismo. Sin embargo, nadie le preparó mentalmente para lo que sería si llegaba a perderla. Ahora Stark debe hacer frente al hecho de que el alma de Zoey ha quedado destrozada y si no quieren perderla para siempre han de encontrar la manera de sacarla de esa situación. No será tarea fácil y menos aún cuando el tiempo corre en su contra con Kalona yendo en busca de ella. ¿Tendrá Stark lo que hay que tener para ayudar a Zoey a encontrar su camino de vuelta a casa? ¿O los dos terminarán perdidos en el más allá para siempre? Sea cual sea su destino, él estará preparado, pues si algo tiene claro es que prefiere perder su vida antes que asumir que Zoey no volverá nunca más.
Stark es un personaje que desde el primer libro en el que aparece me encantó en todos los aspectos. Creo sinceramente que es el mejor personaje de la saga con muchísima diferencia, ya no solo por su manera de ser con Zoey (que eso ya se lleva demasiado puntos), sino por el carácter que tiene o el hecho de que de por si tiene más neuronas que el resto de personajes juntos. Aquí he sufrido mucho por él, especialmente por la conexión que tiene con Zoey y que le estaba haciendo sufrir tanto al no saber cómo llegar a ella y salvarla sabiendo que el tiempo se acortaba. Lo único que puedo decir después de haber leído este libro es que si Zoey no se da cuenta del tremendo hombre que tiene a su lado luego de lo que ha hecho por ella es que sumamente idiota.
Por otro lado tenemos a Rephaim, otro de nuestros protagonistas masculinos. Él es un chico que ahora que está vinculado con Stevie Rae tras salvarle la vida, no puede evitar dudar sobre el camino que quiere realmente. Una parte de él quiere recuperar su antigua vida junto a su padre y seguir el camino que le han inculcado desde su nacimiento. Pero la otra parte de su ser no quiere alejarse de Stevie Rae, de quien ahora es su sacerdotisa y él su consorte. ¿Se puede sentir algo tan fuerte con la persona que es completamente su polo opuesto? No se parecen en nada, ni siquiera en sus ideologías y Rephaim sabe que no es buena idea seguir vinculado con una persona con la que puede terminar teniendo un desenlace fatal. ¿Pero cómo frenas aquello que no tiene límites y que no deja de crecer? ¿Serán capaces de adaptarse a ello a pesar de las mentiras que deben crear para protegerse? ¿O la oscuridad volverá a engullirlo todo hasta no dejar nada?
Rephaim es un personaje que me ha gustado mucho en este libro y es que ya era alguien que me intrigaba mucho desde su primera aparición. Tenía ganas de descubrir qué más escondía su personaje, porque sentía un gran potencial en él desde el inicio. Además que, no os mentiré, la conexión que tiene con Stevie Rae o como se conocen me ha flipado, sobre todo por el ambiente prohibido que se cierne sobre ambos y que puede dar mucho juego a ambos personajes y al destino del mundo y del resto en general.
Y por último tenemos a dos personajes que tendrán su relevancia pero no tanto protagonismo y esos son Kalona y Heath.
Kalona es un personaje que ya en los anteriores libros no fue plato de mi gusto y aquí estamos en las mismas. Obviamente como villano va perfecto porque el odio que le he cogido del final del sexto libro a este ha sido bastante considerable. No me ha gustado nada como Zoey ha caído engañada por él, de hecho sigo sin entender en qué momento sucede eso porque este personaje se ve desde lejos que es un completo idiota desde el minuto uno. Así que, estoy deseando el momento en que le den su merecido, porque bajo mi punto de vista no se merece el perdón.
Heath es un personaje que en este libro he empatizado más con él. No es que le odiase o me cayera mal, pero como me pasaba con todos los personajes de este libro al inicio, me daban bastante igual. En este caso ha demostrado tener dos dedos de frente por una vez y actuar como una persona correcta que debe hacer lo correcto para ayudar a quien ama. Eso ha hecho que se llevase mis respetos más profundos.
En resumen, "Abrasada" es el séptimo libro de una saga que empezó muy floja para mi gusto y es ahora en este séptimo libro que la cosa empieza a ponerse mucho más interesante e intrigante. La trama se mueve mucho más en este libro y apenas sabes por dónde te van a tirar las autoras. Intuyes cosas, obviamente, porque sino no habrían más libros, pero no te esperas algunos desenlaces o algunos sucesos que van tomando forma y que yo no me imaginaba así ni de broma. Además que la parte de los amoríos queda aparcada a un lado y se centran más en la evolución de esa futura guerra que se acerca entre la Luz y la Oscuridad y eso me ha mantenido más enganchada de por sí. Los personajes me han sorprendido y para bien, después de haber tenido más de un quebradero de cabeza con algunos, no me esperaba que aquí irían tomando un poco más de madurez. Sin ir más lejos la propia protagonista no me ha exasperado en este libro y eso ya es un decir. Eso sí, no lo diré muy alto porque nunca se sabe y capaz en el siguiente me la ponen otra vez idiota. Lo que sí espero es que ya se hayan terminado los romances de forma definitiva, porque como me vuelvan a meter otro absurdo harem tomando en cuenta el pedazo chico que tiene Zoey a su lado, yo ya doy por perdida a esta chica por completo. La pluma de las autoras me ha encantado porque siento que la narrativa era un poco más madura que en los otros libros. He sentido que iba todo mucho más directo, sin pararse tanto en las cosas más absurdas y que ahondaba más en las emociones de cada personaje, lo que te permitía conectar mejor con ellos y todo lo que estaban sintiendo.
Este es un libro que forma parte de la saga "La Casa de la Noche" como el séptimo libro y, madre mía, ya iba siendo hora de que la cosa mejorase en esta saga para variar. Si os soy sincera ya iba un poco con pies de plomo con la historia, porque si luego de seis libros la cosa no mejoraba (literal que eso ya es la mitad de la saga) es que ya no iba a hacerlo. Pero me sorprendió con lo contrario y eso es lo que me ha ayudado a disfrutarlo bien y como se debe.
La trama es mucho más compleja aquí, dejamos a un lado los retazos más infantiles y nos centramos en un ambiente más oscuro y tétrico donde no sabes cómo va a terminar todo. Bueno, puedes intuir algunas cosas porque sino no habría más libros, pero sí que te pillan de sorpresa algunos detalles y, sobre todo, que terminen bien algunos puntos que yo ya daba por perdidos. Además, otro punto a favor es que la historia avanza y no se queda estancada por los amoríos de la protagonista, así que por esa razón también me ha encantado el libro.
Los personajes me han sorprendido mucho en este libro y es que dejan a un lado las tonterías para centrarse y buscar respuestas antes de que sea demasiado tarde. Estaba tan acostumbrada a verlos más perdidos que un pez fuera del agua, que aquí me he llevado la grata sorpresa de disfrutar de sus puntos de vista y de lo que pasando entre ellos y sus objetivos en común. El romance está un poco más aparcado en este libro (cosa que agradezco bastante) y lo poco que ha habido me ha encantado porque es la primera vez que ese sentimiento me parece real en esta saga.
La pluma de las autoras toma un poco más de madurez en este libro, se dejan a un lado la comedia y la tontería de los romances y se centran más en la historia oscura de la saga y todo lo que los personajes han de hacer para salir de ahí. Me ha gustado lo bien que han reflejado las emociones de cada uno de ellos y cómo han plasmado el mundo aquí y el final de uno de los personajes icónicos de la historia.
Ahora os hablaré un poco de los personajes principales.
Por un lado tenemos a Zoey, nuestra protagonista femenina. Ella es una chica que siempre ha vivido bajo las dudas de qué era lo correcto, sobre todo en lo referente al amor y a quién merece una segunda oportunidad. Justo cuando su mente estaba segura de que quizá Kalona mereciese eso, la vida la golpeó con fuerza al arrebatarle a una de las personas más importantes de su vida por culpa de él, rompiendo en pedazos su alma en un desesperado intento de no dejar ir a quien había sido su mayor apoyo desde niños. Ahora el alma de Zoey está fragmentada y la única forma de salvarse es dejando ir a Heath aunque el dolor de su corazón al pensar en ello sea insoportable. Pero no puede hacerlo, es incapaz de renunciar a ello por lo abrupto de la situación y una parte de ella piensa que quizá no sea tan malo dejar las cosas estar e irse con Heath para siempre. Olvidando por fin todo lo malo que la apresa en una vorágine de dolor constante. ¿Podrá hallar la paz después de tanto sufrimiento? ¿O quizá la vida le esté preparando para dar un paso al frente y afrontar al fin lo que llevaba postergando tantísimo tiempo?
Zoey es un personaje que, POR PRIMERA VEZ EN TODA LA SAGA NO ME HA EXASPERADO. Y sí, lo digo con mayúsculas porque ni misma me lo creo. Me he pasado seis libros aguantándola por ser una idiota que solo pensaba en las hormonas y en los tíos y aquí, por fin, veo otra parte de ella y dejan un poco de lado los líos amorosos que, espero, que por fin se hayan terminado a estas alturas. Además, las cosas como son, si a estas alturas tiene dudas de a quién quiere con tremendo hombre que tiene a su lado como guerrero, me voy a cabrear de verdad, porque ya es de ser tonta perdida. Dejando esos detalles a un lado, me ha dado bastante pena su situación tras la pérdida de Heath y lo dolida que se encontraba. Aquí vemos un poco mejor el vínculo tan grande que Zoey tenía con Heath y cómo ambos eran incapaces de soltarse, ya no solo por amor, sino por todo lo que habían compartido juntos. No negaré que una parte de mí deseó, como Zoey, que Heath no muriese, pero por otra espero que pueda encontrar la paz que se merece ahora que al fin ha formado parte del objetivo de sanar a una Zoey rota y destrozada.
La siguiente es Stevie Rae, otra de nuestras protagonistas femeninas. Ella es una chica que siempre ha tenido claro que uno de sus objetivos era sobrellevar la maldad que se encuentra dentro de su corazón debido a su naturaleza. No es tarea fácil, pero por fin cree estar lográndolo tras muchos intentos duros y no pierde la esperanza de que todos los demás rojos encuentren la bondad y se pasen a la luz como lo hizo ella. Sin embargo, a día de hoy hay muchos secretos que está ocultando y eso puede ser contraproducente para el futuro, ya que uno de los más graves es que está vinculada con el enemigo. No sabe cómo revertir eso, no, en realidad sí lo sabe, pero se niega a hacerlo por mucho que crea que es lo correcto. Para mayores problemas también sabe que su guerrero, Dallas, y ella están en un punto de casi tener algo y ocultarle una tercera persona no le parece que sea demasiado bueno para el comienzo de una relación entre ellos. Y para finalizar está el problema de Zoey, su mejor amiga, quien ha destrozado su alma para no dejar marchar a una de las personas más importantes para ella. Hay demasiados frentes abiertos y Stevie Rae no sabe bien qué hacer ni en dónde volcar su atención, pero sea como sea, una cosa que tiene clara es que no puede dejar morir a su mejor amiga. Pase lo que pase, deben encontrar una solución pronto, ¿lo lograrán a tiempo?
Stevie Rae es un personaje que me ha gustado muchísimo en este libro, os prometo que no me espera el giro radical de su personaje y me he quedado con unas ganas tremendas de saber mucho más de ella y de lo que puede suceder. Justo cuando decía que no le estaban dando tanta importancia tomando en cuenta todo lo que parece importar su posición como una de las Rojas, encima siendo una Sacerdotisa, me sorprenden con esto y ahora solo sé que quiero más. No sé a dónde va a llevar su personaje, pero espero que le den mucho juego a la relación actual que tiene con su enemigo Rephaim y también a la posición que ella tiene como Roja y las consecuencias que eso puede traer tomando en cuenta las mentiras que ha contado para ocultar al enemigo de sus aliados. Además, otro detalle importante, es que aquí la he visto combatir y enfrentar situaciones bastante grotescas y me ha flipado, creo en lo personaje que Stevie Rae es mucho más interesante que Zoey como protagonista.
Y por último tenemos a Aphodrite, nuestra otra protagonista femenina. Ella es una chica que de las tres es la que menos protagonismo ha tenido, pero que sigue siendo bastante importante para toda la evolución de la trama. Una de las cosas que siempre ha destacado a Aphrodite es que la Diosa le arrebato sus poderes y la convirtió en una humana normal y corriente. Eso es algo que a nadie le gustaría, menos aún con los riesgos actuales que pueden acabar con su vida fácilmente, pero aun así sigue poseyendo un poder descomunal sobre sus visiones. Y ahora también parece que la Diosa Nyx puede tomar su voz y comunicarse a través de ella y de los sueños de la antigua iniciada. Y aunque es algo que la cabrea bastante, Aphrodite es consciente de que deben hacer lo imposible para salvar a Zoey, incluso si eso significa perder cierto control de su propia voz para así encontrar las respuestas a sus dudas. Lo único que hay claro de todo ello, es que para llegar a Zoey, su guerrero Stark ha de llegar al más allá y no morir en el intento. ¿Podrá Aphrodite convertirse en el punto guía que haga que las almas de Stark y Zoey vuelvan a encontrarse en el otro mundo?
Aphrodite es un personaje que de las tres chicas que tienen protagonismo en este libro, es la que menos puntos de vista tiene como tal. Creo que su papel en la saga es bastante importante pero aún no le han dado el potencial que se merece ni lo han sabido explotar bien. Quizá tiene sentido para más adelante y resulta que habrá mucho más juego con ella, pero salvo el detalle de las visiones que ayuda bastante al resto, por lo demás no tiene mucha más relevancia en la historia. Lo único que puedo decir es que me encanta la relación que tiene con Darius y que poco a poco se vaya abriendo más al resto y confiando en ellos para ser su amiga, eso hace que comprenda mejor lo insegura que era desde el inicio y la necesidad que tenía de tener a alguien a su lado.
Por otro lado tenemos a Stark, nuestro protagonista masculino. Él es un chico que desde el momento que se postró ante Zoey para hacerse su guerrero, supo que estaba vinculando su alma entera a ella y entregándole lo único que le quedaba de sí mismo. Sin embargo, nadie le preparó mentalmente para lo que sería si llegaba a perderla. Ahora Stark debe hacer frente al hecho de que el alma de Zoey ha quedado destrozada y si no quieren perderla para siempre han de encontrar la manera de sacarla de esa situación. No será tarea fácil y menos aún cuando el tiempo corre en su contra con Kalona yendo en busca de ella. ¿Tendrá Stark lo que hay que tener para ayudar a Zoey a encontrar su camino de vuelta a casa? ¿O los dos terminarán perdidos en el más allá para siempre? Sea cual sea su destino, él estará preparado, pues si algo tiene claro es que prefiere perder su vida antes que asumir que Zoey no volverá nunca más.
Stark es un personaje que desde el primer libro en el que aparece me encantó en todos los aspectos. Creo sinceramente que es el mejor personaje de la saga con muchísima diferencia, ya no solo por su manera de ser con Zoey (que eso ya se lleva demasiado puntos), sino por el carácter que tiene o el hecho de que de por si tiene más neuronas que el resto de personajes juntos. Aquí he sufrido mucho por él, especialmente por la conexión que tiene con Zoey y que le estaba haciendo sufrir tanto al no saber cómo llegar a ella y salvarla sabiendo que el tiempo se acortaba. Lo único que puedo decir después de haber leído este libro es que si Zoey no se da cuenta del tremendo hombre que tiene a su lado luego de lo que ha hecho por ella es que sumamente idiota.
Por otro lado tenemos a Rephaim, otro de nuestros protagonistas masculinos. Él es un chico que ahora que está vinculado con Stevie Rae tras salvarle la vida, no puede evitar dudar sobre el camino que quiere realmente. Una parte de él quiere recuperar su antigua vida junto a su padre y seguir el camino que le han inculcado desde su nacimiento. Pero la otra parte de su ser no quiere alejarse de Stevie Rae, de quien ahora es su sacerdotisa y él su consorte. ¿Se puede sentir algo tan fuerte con la persona que es completamente su polo opuesto? No se parecen en nada, ni siquiera en sus ideologías y Rephaim sabe que no es buena idea seguir vinculado con una persona con la que puede terminar teniendo un desenlace fatal. ¿Pero cómo frenas aquello que no tiene límites y que no deja de crecer? ¿Serán capaces de adaptarse a ello a pesar de las mentiras que deben crear para protegerse? ¿O la oscuridad volverá a engullirlo todo hasta no dejar nada?
Rephaim es un personaje que me ha gustado mucho en este libro y es que ya era alguien que me intrigaba mucho desde su primera aparición. Tenía ganas de descubrir qué más escondía su personaje, porque sentía un gran potencial en él desde el inicio. Además que, no os mentiré, la conexión que tiene con Stevie Rae o como se conocen me ha flipado, sobre todo por el ambiente prohibido que se cierne sobre ambos y que puede dar mucho juego a ambos personajes y al destino del mundo y del resto en general.
Y por último tenemos a dos personajes que tendrán su relevancia pero no tanto protagonismo y esos son Kalona y Heath.
Kalona es un personaje que ya en los anteriores libros no fue plato de mi gusto y aquí estamos en las mismas. Obviamente como villano va perfecto porque el odio que le he cogido del final del sexto libro a este ha sido bastante considerable. No me ha gustado nada como Zoey ha caído engañada por él, de hecho sigo sin entender en qué momento sucede eso porque este personaje se ve desde lejos que es un completo idiota desde el minuto uno. Así que, estoy deseando el momento en que le den su merecido, porque bajo mi punto de vista no se merece el perdón.
Heath es un personaje que en este libro he empatizado más con él. No es que le odiase o me cayera mal, pero como me pasaba con todos los personajes de este libro al inicio, me daban bastante igual. En este caso ha demostrado tener dos dedos de frente por una vez y actuar como una persona correcta que debe hacer lo correcto para ayudar a quien ama. Eso ha hecho que se llevase mis respetos más profundos.
En resumen, "Abrasada" es el séptimo libro de una saga que empezó muy floja para mi gusto y es ahora en este séptimo libro que la cosa empieza a ponerse mucho más interesante e intrigante. La trama se mueve mucho más en este libro y apenas sabes por dónde te van a tirar las autoras. Intuyes cosas, obviamente, porque sino no habrían más libros, pero no te esperas algunos desenlaces o algunos sucesos que van tomando forma y que yo no me imaginaba así ni de broma. Además que la parte de los amoríos queda aparcada a un lado y se centran más en la evolución de esa futura guerra que se acerca entre la Luz y la Oscuridad y eso me ha mantenido más enganchada de por sí. Los personajes me han sorprendido y para bien, después de haber tenido más de un quebradero de cabeza con algunos, no me esperaba que aquí irían tomando un poco más de madurez. Sin ir más lejos la propia protagonista no me ha exasperado en este libro y eso ya es un decir. Eso sí, no lo diré muy alto porque nunca se sabe y capaz en el siguiente me la ponen otra vez idiota. Lo que sí espero es que ya se hayan terminado los romances de forma definitiva, porque como me vuelvan a meter otro absurdo harem tomando en cuenta el pedazo chico que tiene Zoey a su lado, yo ya doy por perdida a esta chica por completo. La pluma de las autoras me ha encantado porque siento que la narrativa era un poco más madura que en los otros libros. He sentido que iba todo mucho más directo, sin pararse tanto en las cosas más absurdas y que ahondaba más en las emociones de cada personaje, lo que te permitía conectar mejor con ellos y todo lo que estaban sintiendo.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 24, 2010
First off the cover..... Awsome. the title....... Awsome....... This book is gonna test Zoey, Stevie Rae, and Aphrodite. See if Zoey can overcome the terrible events that took a deadly toll on her. If Stevie Rae can find the strenght and courge to put those red Flegding in line, and find a way to save Zoey From the Otherworld? If Aphrodite can manage the sudden pressure of Nyx is putting on her. By talking to her, Whether Aphrodite want it or not?
Three girls… playing with fire… if they don’t watch out, everyone will get Burned..........
the HOUSE OF NIGHT booke series!!!
Books (Everything after Burned Im not 100% those are the right titles. oh well hahaha) The following H.O.N books in order:
-Marked, 1st Book
-Betrayed , 2nd Book
-Chosen, 3rd Book
-Untamed, 4th Book
-Hunted, 5th Book
-Tempted, 6th Book
-Burned, 7th Book (April 27, 2010)
-Stolen, 8th Book
-Burdened, 9th Book
-Touched, 10th Book
-Cloaked, 11th Book
-Wanted, 12th Book
Three girls… playing with fire… if they don’t watch out, everyone will get Burned..........
the HOUSE OF NIGHT booke series!!!
Books (Everything after Burned Im not 100% those are the right titles. oh well hahaha) The following H.O.N books in order:
-Marked, 1st Book
-Betrayed , 2nd Book
-Chosen, 3rd Book
-Untamed, 4th Book
-Hunted, 5th Book
-Tempted, 6th Book
-Burned, 7th Book (April 27, 2010)
-Stolen, 8th Book
-Burdened, 9th Book
-Touched, 10th Book
-Cloaked, 11th Book
-Wanted, 12th Book
June 7, 2020
All logic of this book went out the window. It did give me a couple laughs but that’s because none of things made sense and the characters were just idiotic
June 22, 2010
It took abit of time from reading Tempted to Burned. And if you cried in Tempted. You will die in burned. No but I cried and cried and cried. I would say one of the best books in this gener.
Zoey has a hard time right now. Heath is in 'otherland' with zoey and the wrong thing is that his dead and shes not.
Her friends tries to bring her spirit back to 'earth' but they cant see how.
Zoeys warrior, James Stark is broken in pieces because he think that this is his fault. So they search through old books about a warrior bringing back his High Priestess. But all they find out is that all warriors succeded to come to the 'otherland' but the mission to come there was to hard so they died. So it all ended up with both of them died.
But Stark, a young hot warrior, find a way to not die but still get there.
This book was beautiful written. Full of disire and also heart breaking in the end.
Zoey has a hard time right now. Heath is in 'otherland' with zoey and the wrong thing is that his dead and shes not.
Her friends tries to bring her spirit back to 'earth' but they cant see how.
Zoeys warrior, James Stark is broken in pieces because he think that this is his fault. So they search through old books about a warrior bringing back his High Priestess. But all they find out is that all warriors succeded to come to the 'otherland' but the mission to come there was to hard so they died. So it all ended up with both of them died.
But Stark, a young hot warrior, find a way to not die but still get there.
This book was beautiful written. Full of disire and also heart breaking in the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 13, 2020
Actual Rating: 3.5 almost a 4.
Despite not much actually happening in this book (for the first 200 pages at least) the last 100 were just *chefs kiss*. These books have become almost a guilty pleasure series, they're just super easy to read, you don't have to think much, they're just solid.
I like the main storylines going on right now and the way they're going! I know this was more of a filler book than the other ones but some things happened at the end that in just like yep this was good. I only have the next book to read right now, I'm gonna have to work on buying the last few, I'm definitely reading to the end
Despite not much actually happening in this book (for the first 200 pages at least) the last 100 were just *chefs kiss*. These books have become almost a guilty pleasure series, they're just super easy to read, you don't have to think much, they're just solid.
I like the main storylines going on right now and the way they're going! I know this was more of a filler book than the other ones but some things happened at the end that in just like yep this was good. I only have the next book to read right now, I'm gonna have to work on buying the last few, I'm definitely reading to the end
January 3, 2023
Aphrodite is hilarious, and Zoey exhausting.
Just make up your mind Zoey! Aphrodite should have been the main character. She's not a wimp.
Just make up your mind Zoey! Aphrodite should have been the main character. She's not a wimp.
June 19, 2010
Burned is one of those books that you either adore, you shrug your shoulders at, or you loathe with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. In my opinion, compared to other HoN books, Burned was a let down, but I didn't want to burn--pardon the pun--it or anything. It did have its moments like Stevie Rae and Rephaim romance and the mythology but nothing really...happened. Zoey was restored, that's about the only thing I could get from this book. By the end of it I just felt cheated almost. The last fifty pages was the only redeeming thing that reminded why I bothered to read the series in the first place. I have never been a big fan of HoN to begin with, but I did find them to be short, exciting reads for a rainy day.
It took me a while to figure out what was bothering me so much about this book and why it took me so long to finish it. The others I whipped through in two days time, but this one seemed to drag on. I finally realized what was wrong after really thinking about the book as a whole and I narrowed my problems with it down to three major things.
1. The switching of point-of-views.
This series started out with a very distinct first-person point-of-view with Zoey. Now while Zoey was by no means a ground-breaking character, I have to admit she kept things interesting and having one main focus provided the earlier books with a smooth chapter-by-chapter flow. With multiple point-of-views you can't have that smooth flow. I get why they did it, but I think that if they knew they were going to start this, use it for all of the books, not just the later ones. And narrow the narrators down to three or two, because with every character getting a turn, it's too sporadic. As soon as you get to something good with one character, you're forced to go see what another is doing only to spend the first few pages playing catch-up. Then, once things get interesting with that character, it's back we go to another and more catch-up. While Zoey was annoying and groan-worthy sometimes, you never had to play catch-up when it was just about her. Another thing is, some of the character simply to have the chops to be center stage. They're at their best as secondary characters. Stark in particular got underneath my skin. I loved him the first books and then began to wonder why I did in this book. It wasn't until the very end did I start to like him again as he gained the cockiness and loyalty he has through Zoey's eyes. He losses a bit of edge when we have him as the narrator.
2. The "Bad" Guys
I'm confused; is Kalona good or evil? I thought by the end of Tempted that we had established he was evil, but that seems to be contradicted in this book. He hypes about feeling something like guilt and regret while in the Otherworld chasing after Zoey, yet the next thing we know, he's beating Stark to a pulp. I have a feeling he's going to be redeemed somehow and yet I just kind of want him to move on and do it already. Choose Light or Darkness; quit swaying in the middle for who knows how long. Again, I think he's one of thos characters that's better as a secondary. When we're in his head, we're as confused as he is. Neferet also bothered me. I don't get how she could stand before the Vampyre High Council and not have one of them sense the Darkness that she seems to have immersed herself in. Also, I'm a little lost as to why she turned to Darkness. I get that she wants power, but I've forgotten why she wants power so bad. Her motivations seem cloudly and kind of cliched to me (when going with the whole ruling the world thing). Does she want power simply to have power? I would've liked to be in her head rather than Kalona's because she's the true evil here. Or at least, that's what I was lead to believe by the end of this back. Still wondering about Kalona...
3. The Romance--or Lack Thereof
Yes, we had Stevie Rae and Rephaim as our main couple focus this time around and, yes, I thought their story was the best thing about this book, but, in the end, nothing really changed between them. Rephaim is still denying his love for her and while Stevie Rae seems to have accepted him, it feels almost forced. Plus, with Rephaim having a beak and being birdman, I don't see how their relationship could progress past the Beauty and the Beast stage. I have a feeling he's going to turn human or something in the future books, but I would've liked him to make his choice already seeing as the whole book was leading up to that: him choosing Stevie Rae over Darkness. I felt Dallas's whole flip-flop to the evil side seemed out of character for him, though I can understand where he's coming what with Stevie Rae continuing to lie to him and all. Aphrodite and Darius were barely in the book and we only caught snipets of their relationship. And finally that brings me to Zoey and Stark. I've always liked Stark. He seemed like a good match for Zoey, not too posessive like Erik and not too (how do I put this nicely?) ignorant like Heath. And while Stark went to the ends of the Earth to bring Zoey back, we weren't rewarded with any real connection between the two of them until the very end. While I was beating my head against a wall along with the rest of the folks that were eye-rolling at Zoey's three guys issue, I did find it interesting how each of her relationships were protrayed in a different light. I'm not saying I liked it, but it was interesting to read. What I'm trying to say here, is that all of the relationships never really progressed to the next stage. (I don't mean like third or second base.) I mean I want a relationship in the book to actually grow and remain stable. With all the flip-flopping of guys in the book, we never really got that. It's the same relationship with different people dragged through the same steps. I want to see characters develop through these relationships and actually learn from one another, get to a new level of trusting each other. Not just remain in the same "I love you and you love me, let's kiss." With Heath and Erik out of the way, I'm hoping to get that in the next book with Zoey and Stark. Basically what I want is some memorable, romantic scenes that make me think, "They belong together." and would make me start rooting for them to stay together. I'm not getting that feeling from any of the couples so far.
So, in summary, the book is readable and is alright for hard-core fans, but won't do much to sway the "meh" and "OMG I hate this series!" people. Will I be reading the next book? Absolutely, just to see where this goes.
It took me a while to figure out what was bothering me so much about this book and why it took me so long to finish it. The others I whipped through in two days time, but this one seemed to drag on. I finally realized what was wrong after really thinking about the book as a whole and I narrowed my problems with it down to three major things.
1. The switching of point-of-views.
This series started out with a very distinct first-person point-of-view with Zoey. Now while Zoey was by no means a ground-breaking character, I have to admit she kept things interesting and having one main focus provided the earlier books with a smooth chapter-by-chapter flow. With multiple point-of-views you can't have that smooth flow. I get why they did it, but I think that if they knew they were going to start this, use it for all of the books, not just the later ones. And narrow the narrators down to three or two, because with every character getting a turn, it's too sporadic. As soon as you get to something good with one character, you're forced to go see what another is doing only to spend the first few pages playing catch-up. Then, once things get interesting with that character, it's back we go to another and more catch-up. While Zoey was annoying and groan-worthy sometimes, you never had to play catch-up when it was just about her. Another thing is, some of the character simply to have the chops to be center stage. They're at their best as secondary characters. Stark in particular got underneath my skin. I loved him the first books and then began to wonder why I did in this book. It wasn't until the very end did I start to like him again as he gained the cockiness and loyalty he has through Zoey's eyes. He losses a bit of edge when we have him as the narrator.
2. The "Bad" Guys
I'm confused; is Kalona good or evil? I thought by the end of Tempted that we had established he was evil, but that seems to be contradicted in this book. He hypes about feeling something like guilt and regret while in the Otherworld chasing after Zoey, yet the next thing we know, he's beating Stark to a pulp. I have a feeling he's going to be redeemed somehow and yet I just kind of want him to move on and do it already. Choose Light or Darkness; quit swaying in the middle for who knows how long. Again, I think he's one of thos characters that's better as a secondary. When we're in his head, we're as confused as he is. Neferet also bothered me. I don't get how she could stand before the Vampyre High Council and not have one of them sense the Darkness that she seems to have immersed herself in. Also, I'm a little lost as to why she turned to Darkness. I get that she wants power, but I've forgotten why she wants power so bad. Her motivations seem cloudly and kind of cliched to me (when going with the whole ruling the world thing). Does she want power simply to have power? I would've liked to be in her head rather than Kalona's because she's the true evil here. Or at least, that's what I was lead to believe by the end of this back. Still wondering about Kalona...
3. The Romance--or Lack Thereof
Yes, we had Stevie Rae and Rephaim as our main couple focus this time around and, yes, I thought their story was the best thing about this book, but, in the end, nothing really changed between them. Rephaim is still denying his love for her and while Stevie Rae seems to have accepted him, it feels almost forced. Plus, with Rephaim having a beak and being birdman, I don't see how their relationship could progress past the Beauty and the Beast stage. I have a feeling he's going to turn human or something in the future books, but I would've liked him to make his choice already seeing as the whole book was leading up to that: him choosing Stevie Rae over Darkness. I felt Dallas's whole flip-flop to the evil side seemed out of character for him, though I can understand where he's coming what with Stevie Rae continuing to lie to him and all. Aphrodite and Darius were barely in the book and we only caught snipets of their relationship. And finally that brings me to Zoey and Stark. I've always liked Stark. He seemed like a good match for Zoey, not too posessive like Erik and not too (how do I put this nicely?) ignorant like Heath. And while Stark went to the ends of the Earth to bring Zoey back, we weren't rewarded with any real connection between the two of them until the very end. While I was beating my head against a wall along with the rest of the folks that were eye-rolling at Zoey's three guys issue, I did find it interesting how each of her relationships were protrayed in a different light. I'm not saying I liked it, but it was interesting to read. What I'm trying to say here, is that all of the relationships never really progressed to the next stage. (I don't mean like third or second base.) I mean I want a relationship in the book to actually grow and remain stable. With all the flip-flopping of guys in the book, we never really got that. It's the same relationship with different people dragged through the same steps. I want to see characters develop through these relationships and actually learn from one another, get to a new level of trusting each other. Not just remain in the same "I love you and you love me, let's kiss." With Heath and Erik out of the way, I'm hoping to get that in the next book with Zoey and Stark. Basically what I want is some memorable, romantic scenes that make me think, "They belong together." and would make me start rooting for them to stay together. I'm not getting that feeling from any of the couples so far.
So, in summary, the book is readable and is alright for hard-core fans, but won't do much to sway the "meh" and "OMG I hate this series!" people. Will I be reading the next book? Absolutely, just to see where this goes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2010
I was eagerly anticipating this book, but it is clear after reading it that the authors are merely dragging this story out for profit instead of the work itself. While the other six previous novels were paced well, this book drags. The idiotic and sterotypical language in this book is extremely annoying. The many different points of view border on the absurd. I can see introducing a couple of new povs, but everyone almost has a pov in this story and it leapfrogs between them.
You knew form early on in the book how Zoey's dilemma was going to be resolved so tension in the rest of the book suffers. I like the scenes between Rephaim and Stevie Rae, but overall just found the book lacking.
Hopefully the next book will be better.
You knew form early on in the book how Zoey's dilemma was going to be resolved so tension in the rest of the book suffers. I like the scenes between Rephaim and Stevie Rae, but overall just found the book lacking.
Hopefully the next book will be better.
March 25, 2018
Let me save you some time.
Page 181. That's where the actual plot starts rolling.
Pages 297-298. That's how long it took Zoey to actually put her soul back together.
Throw in some forbidden love for Stevie-Rae, Aphrodite getting treated like an idiot when she's trying to help, and 3 heartbroken men who have no business being as devoted and madly in love with Zoey as they claim to be, and you've got this book.
Page 181. That's where the actual plot starts rolling.
Pages 297-298. That's how long it took Zoey to actually put her soul back together.
Throw in some forbidden love for Stevie-Rae, Aphrodite getting treated like an idiot when she's trying to help, and 3 heartbroken men who have no business being as devoted and madly in love with Zoey as they claim to be, and you've got this book.
August 17, 2018
I've read seven of these books in the series so far, and really enjoyed them. There aren't many books I read, that I wish would be turned into a film or TV series, but I think these would be great on TV.
April 27, 2020
Would've given it 1-2 stars if it weren't for Steavie Rae's part.
April 30, 2020
I read this one the normal way and finished it in 4 hours. Imagine what I could have done with that time instead.
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