Novel Review: Tempted (House of Night, #6) by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Rating (Out of 5): ~2.5?

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Release Date: 2009

Spoilers?: Not really.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

So...you'd think after banishing an immortal being and a fallen High Priestess, saving Stark's life, biting Heath, getting a headache from Erik, and almost dying, Zoey Redbird would catch a break. Sadly, a break is not in the House of Night school forecast for the High Priestess in training and her gang. Juggling three guys is anything but a stress reliever, especially when one of them is a sexy Warrior who is so into protecting Zoey that he can sense her emotions. Speaking of stress, the dark force lurking in the tunnels under the Tulsa Depot is spreading, and Zoey is beginning to believe Stevie Rae could be responsible for a lot more than a group of misfit red fledglings. Aphrodite's visions warn Zoey to stay away from Kalona and his dark allure, but they also show that it is Zoey who has the power to stop the evil immortal. Soon it becomes obvious that Zoey has no choice: if she doesn't go to Kalona he will exact a fiery vengeance on those closest to her. Will Zoey have the courage to chance losing her life, her heart, and her soul? Find out in the next spectacular installment in the House of Night Series, "Tempted."

The Cover:

I actually really like this cover. It's overall very pretty, I love the design and the colors and the models and their poses. It looks very pretty both on the screen and in person.

Quotes:

• "'Don’t you believe we make our own luck?’” (Hardback, pg. 78)
• "'Do not ever forget, as our people have always known, there is a deep power in words that speak the truth.’” (Pg. 155)

Review:

I’m surprisingly conflicted about this book. On one hand, I really, really disliked it, and on the other, I kind of want to read more? I don’t understand how that works, exactly.

So, I kind of hate a lot of the characters in this series, as well as the writing.

I don’t like the writing in this series, at all. Particularly the language used. Aphrodite cusses because she doesn’t care, but it seems like the other characters are too childish to do so themselves. Zoey avoids it under most circumstances, and Stevie Rae makes up ‘southern’ metaphors and curses and things. And there’s a different between making the choice not to curse, and thinking that they’re ‘naughty’ words because they’ve been told not to, the latter of which seems to be their reasoning.

Honestly, all of the child-proof cursing makes this read like a Disney-censored version of how teenagers actually talk. Like repeated use of ‘bullpoopie’ or just ‘poopie’. Then there’s the general repeated use of words, like super and uber, and brown pop (which seemed to be forgotten in the first half of the book, then repeated a handful of times in the second half), and the stupid ‘question-mark look’. The use of ‘undressed’ when the character still had pants on. And there’s the repeated defining of words, like the readers are stupid or shouldn’t look it up on their own, like ‘dour’ and ‘veracity’.

Then there’s the stupid characterization. There’s the stereotypical ones, like Damien, Jack, Kramisha, and Stevie Rae. Pretty much all of them, really. But then there’s the fact that most of the characters are defined by one thing: Stevie Rae=southern, Damien=smart gay, Erin and Shaunee=fashion friendly twins. It’s repetitive and annoying. It got on my nerves how repeated it was that Damien was the only smart person in the group. Then how impressive it was to Zoey that Stark reads.

It’s also easy to get annoyed with how all of the characters have to chime in to agree with something, so there’re four lines of four different characters saying some version of ‘yes’. Like we have to be reminded that each character agrees with each other and is there for the others.

It bothered me immensely how much emphasis there was on telling the truth, that the truth will lead you, you’ll just know. Like, we get it already, god. Also how repeated it was that the group could call on an element, that it was there for them, and how often they had to repeat the phrase to call on their element. Zoey’s calling on spirit got annoying fast, in particular.

I don’t like Zoey, at all. I kind of hate her most, in fact. And above all, I don’t believe that she’s strong enough or smart enough to be some high priestess, that she should be leaned on to guide the others. And it’s hard to agree with everyone leaning on her when you don’t believe her.

I was expecting to like Stevie Rae, but she got annoying kind of fast. Her storyline was interesting, and I am intrigued by it, but her as a character not so much.

There were a few characters that I did like, though. Aphrodite, and especially Darius, and her with Darius. They’re cute together. I do actually like Jack, even if he’s overly stereotyped. I like Heath a lot, which makes what happened at the end of this book really upsetting. I like Stark a lot, too.

I kind of don’t want to make this comparison, but Zoey was starting to remind me of Anita Blake, which isn’t good. But her predicament with all these guys was reminding me of Anita, in a very bad way. But the situation that happened to Anita wouldn’t happen in a young adult book, and the only other option that was popping in my head was, well um, what happened with Heath (as long as something doesn’t mess that up in the next book). Which depresses me a lot, but makes sense. Especially since Erik was out of the picture, thank god, finally. Also, it’s surprising how little kissing there is for a series with a girl surrounded by boyfriends. 

So I really didn’t like this book. I didn’t like it for a lot of reasons, obviously. And yet I kind of want to read the next one, because I do really want to know what happens next. And sometimes the kind of drama that this series involves is actually what you want to read, which is why I'm conflicted on the rating. But there are, like, six more books or something, and I don’t think I want to put myself through that much. It’s possible I’ll pick up the next book, if I find it extremely cheap, but it’s likely that I won’t because I disliked it enough.

Review: Hunted (House of Night, Book 5) by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Rating (Out of 5): ~2.5/3

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Amazon Synopsis:

What if the hottest guy in the world was hiding a nameless evil, and all he wanted was you?
At the start of this heart-pounding new installment of the bestselling House of Night series, Zoey and her gang must discover a way to deal with an unexpected danger that might bring them all down.  Neferet guards her powerful new consort, Kalona, who looks gorgeous and has the House of Night under his spell. A past life holds the key to breaking his rapidly spreading power, but what if it shows Zoey truths she can’t face?  Meanwhile, the red fledglings have cleaned up well, but are they really as friendly as they seem?  On the boyfriend front, Zoey has a chance to fix things with super-hot ex-, Erik, but she can’t stop thinking about Stark, the archer who died in her arms, and she is driven to save him from Neferet’s sinister influence.  Will anyone believe the power evil has to hide among us?

Review:

A friend of mine suggested that I start this series a while ago, as she was really enjoying it. So I did. And I enjoyed it, for the most part. The vampyres are different from normal, and how they're made is a little odd, and the whole goddess and demon thing is interesting. It's a bit odd how it all works, and they (at least as long as they're not fully into their 'powers' or whatever) don't really seem all that vampire-like. They're not a very dangerous vampire type.

And the one thing that I do like about this series is the actual plot point. The parts that Zoey's fighting against Neferet, and fighting against the other people as well; when she's being actually smart and mean. This doesn't happen very often. There are usually very few scenes like this in each book, and they are very brief (and sometimes at the very end). Which is disappointing.

And I like Aphrodite. Stevie Rae is pretty cool, and, despite the stereotypes, I do like Damien and Jack. I'm not too big a fan of Erin and Shaunee, as they seem immature. But I am finding a lot of this series immature and annoying.

First, Zoey. I am really starting to hate Zoey. She is supposed to be strong and smart, since she's practically a high priestess or whatever, so high up next to Nyx, and all that. And yet she isn't very smart, and is making bad decisions all the time. She falls for her teacher, stupidly, and is deceived and hurt. She can't make up her mind about what boy she wants, and whenever she seems to choose, she second guesses it and continues wanting and not resisting the other guys. She needs to make up her freakin' mind. (In my opinion, I think I like Heath most. Erik is pretty much a jerk. I don't know much about Stark yet. And I didn't even like Heath at first, but he's pretty fun.) (Also, and, yes, this is probably not a very good comparison, but with they way this is going with Zoey stringing on so many guys and feeling 'ho-ish' but then making excuses to make it seem alright, it's starting to remind me of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton. In the later books, where she is practically a slut and has sex with so many guys. This is like a much more tamed, immature version of that.) She's dumb and doesn't deserve all that she has.

And I am really bothered by the writing. It's a little crude and, again, immature, and a little bit over exaggerated, in a fanfiction type way, with the words they use. There's cussing and little kid type of words, and it's all so stupid. And it's so very repetitive; the word choice and what they're talking about and the plot. And it's moving so very slowly. The characters are all pretty immature and dumb; they need to grow up a lot more. And, yea, there is quite a bit of stereotyping happening.
A lot of the story focuses on Zoey and her love troubles and her worrying and trying to think of how to solve what's going on. But very little of the plot is actually moved within the over three-hundred page book. And the ending was pretty lame.

It's just dragging on everything with Neferet and Zoey's love life and Kalona. And, really? Zoey has to be the one reincarnated as his love? But of course, though, since everyone has to love Zoey. I'm over all that. Some plot-line action needs to happen.

I already have the next book in the series, but I don't know if I'll be reading it any time soon. I know that there are other points of view than Zoey's, which makes it sound a bit better, since I don't like Zoey possibly most, but it's not enough to make me excited. I've been meaning to read it for a while, but I haven't gotten around to making myself actually do it yet. I'm not planning on not reading more of it, since I like finishing things and I do kind of want to see more of the plot, but it will still probably take a while.