Recommended By: Amazon because I enjoyed Twilight

Recommended For: No One.

One word to describe The House of Night Series (Marked, Betrayed, Chosen, Untamed and Hunted by P.C. and Kristin Cast): Trashy. I cannot believe Amazon recommended these books based on enjoying the Twilight Saga Series. Yes, there are teenagers and vampires – but that is where the similarities end. I am also utterly confused as to who P.C. and Kristin Cast wrote these books for.   The writing style seems to have been penned for grades three or four, but the content (sex, language) is definitely adult. Which is perhaps why, the editorial review for the series says it is for Grade 9 and up – I guess they tried to meet in the middle.

The concept sounded fun – a boarding school for teenagers transitioning to Vampyres learning about their gifts, religion, culture and history, with a main character, Zoey Redbird, marked as special – marked to save the world (very reminiscent of Hogwarts & Harry Potter). However, the moment I started reading, I was disgusted by the authors’ style and tone (Is my generation going to be remember by books like this and Rock of Love?).

Several things really bothered me:

One – and the only way I can describe this is – how cool the books tried to be.

The series just seemed to date itself with every little statement it attempted to make. Even the fact that the authors decided to use “Vampyre” because putting a Y in for an I makes things so much hipper, (al la 1990).  There are very few clues about the time period of Twilight – the mention of Bella using the internet and the Cullen’s using cell phones to communicate when running/hunting James are about the only things that date the Twilight Saga. The House of Night Series makes comments on celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan – the books are trying so hard to be trendy that they are almost out-dated before they are published; let alone five or ten years from now.

Second – the main character and her love life.

Zoey is portrayed as spoiled, selfish, cruel, dim-witted teenager. Instead of the standard teenage love triangle (as in Twilight and many other young adult books) – there’s pretty much a love pentagon with Zoey falling in love with every boy she meets.  (With the exception of the boys who are homosexual; who are apparently the only boys she can be just friends with.) If the main character was a guy, who was fooling around with three to five women, he would not be a hero, he would be a pig.   Also, whatever may have been said of the sexual content in the Twilight Saga Series, (including Breaking Dawn) – within the first 100 pages of Marked ( the first book), Zoey stumbles upon a couple having oral sex in a hallway, by Chosen (the third book), she’s had sex with one of her teachers who she just met and by Hunted (the fifth book), Zoey’s learned absolutely nothing about love, sex, or herself and is still “in love” (term used loosely – just like the main character – ba da da) and is sexually attracted to every guy she has met.

But I think what I found most upsetting about the whole series – was how judgmental and hypocritical each book seemed to be.

When Zoey stumbles upon the couple having oral sex in the hallway – there is a big diatribe about how that sexual act makes someone a total whore and in the same regard about someone who wears smeared black eye shadow. Yet the authors’ moral compass seems to have no issue with a student having sex with a teacher, she just met – nor the fact that the main character seems to use every guy she sees, with little consideration for their feelings.

I can find only two redeeming things to say about the House of Night Series – One: I did managed to read all five books – most likely because the passage of time in each book is only about a week and at the conclusion of each book there is no resolution to the story line whatsoever; and Two: that maybe if this is a popular YA series – I have a chance at becoming an author full time.  So, please do not take Amazon’s suggestion that this is a series worth reading, just because you like Twilight – it is not.