(This review was originally written and published in August of 2012.)

Alright, everyone.  Here we go with a new book!  Marked is the first book in the House of Night series, which is written by PC Cast and Kristin Cast.  They’ve put out twelve books in five years.  Um, yeah, that puts me in mind of James Patterson, and that’s not a good thing.  I have yet to see anyone put out novels that fast and have them all be good.  Maybe two in one year, if the author is having a good year, but two a year for five years running?  That, to me, speaks of a habit of laziness and research fails.  Let’s find out if I’m right.

Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse I saw the dead guy standing next to my locker. 

That’s our opening line.  Okay, great!  I’m hooked!  Tell me more about the dead guy!

And then the very next line takes place before the dead guy and is all about how our narrator is chatting with her bestest best friend.  Um, what?  Did we just have a flashback in the middle of a paragraph?  Yes.  Yes, we did. 

Opening Lines 101: Having a strong first line, or hook, is a good idea.  It’ll draw the reader in and make them say “eh?  I must find out more!”  However, that strong opening line has to lead into a strong opening story.  If the dead guy next to her locker was the shocking thing to open with, then we should have opened with it, not with some chick babbling about drama.  If you introduce something we want to know about and then promptly ignore it for a page of teenage drama, we’re going to lose interest pretty fast and then also hate you.

So, there’s some drama about some football dude getting drunk after a game.  I don’t know who this guy is or why I should care, because nothing has been set up yet.  Therefore, I don’t give a shit.  Oh, and also Zoey is sick.  Let’s move on to the dead guy.

He was undead. Or un-human. Whatever. Scientists said one thing, people said another, but the end result was the same.

And that result is…?  Seriously, come on, give me something to work with.  Telling me that he might be dead or might be human or might be neither is not terribly informative, especially when I don’t know the arguments on either side.

Furthermore, while I’m all on board with an unresolved in-universe issue like this, what does Zoey think?  Knowing where she stands on the dead/human/undead scale would tell me a lot about her character.  (Well, it would if I know the reasons/arguments involved.)  Even just a hint would be nice, rather than this lame shit that decides to throw hands in the air and just say ‘fuck it, we don’t want to define stuff.’

The guy is a vampyre Tracker (note the ‘y’ and the capital ’T’ to indicate that this book is ~*~different~*~ from all those others), and he spouts off some really nonsensical lyrics about Zoey being chosen.  Then he points a finger at her, and her forehead explodes into specialness.  She gets an outline of a crescent moon there.

Am I the only one having Sailor Moon flashbacks?

Zoey’s friend gets all shocked that she’s been Marked and backs up.  Zoey is hurt that her friend is acting like this, but has NOT ONE SINGLE FUCK TO GIVE about the fact that Mr. Undead over there just specialed her.  Seriously, doesn’t even think about it.  No shock, no confusion, no elation, no reaction at all.  The only thing she thinks about at all is that she’s mildly relieved that this didn’t happen in front of a crowd of people, because, like, OMG y’all, that would be just so embarrassing.

I guess we can see what Zoey’s priorities are.

Had I not been totally psycho about the geometry test from hell scheduled for tomorrow, and had run back to my locker to get my book so I could attempt to obsessively (and pointlessly) study tonight

Editor?  Anywhere?  Hello?  Editor?  I think something ate a few words in this.

my stupid Barbie-clone sister

a tall thin dork with messed-up teeth

Wow.  Just…wow.  I can see this book is going to be just full of thoughtful, nuanced portrayals of bit characters. 

I have a car, but standing around with the less fortunate who have to ride the buses is a time-honored tradition,

So, in addition to not giving any fucks about being marked, to thinking her sister is a stereotype, and to hating on people for their appearance, Zoey is also a rich-girl brat who enjoys judging people while simultaneously ‘slumming.’

Good god, we’re barely into this book and I have already reached an impressive level of hate for the main character.

Do vampyres play chess? Were there vampyre dorks? How about Barbie-like vampyre cheerleaders? Did any vampyres play in the band? Were there vampyre Emos with their guy-wearing-girl’s-pants weirdness and those awful bangs that cover half their faces? Or were they all those freaky Goth kids who didn’t like to bathe much? Was I going to turn into a Goth kid? Or worse, an Emo?

Uh, gee, I don’t know.  Why don’t you tell me?  After all, vampyres are obviously well-known enough that there’s scientific debate about them, so I’m assuming you’d be more informed about their fashion sense.  I mean, YOU FUCKING LIVE IN THIS WORLD, WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME ABOUT IT INSTEAD OF ASK ME ABOUT IT!

Also, do vampyres have souls?  Do they go to hell?  Is dying (or quasi-dying) painful?  Are they tortured wreaks of humanity, or just basically like pale-but-normal people?  Do they kill?  Will turning into one change your fundamental personality or force you to do things that go against your nature and morals?  Why are these not questions you are asking, if you insist on asking questions?  Why is all of your concern reserved for fucking fashion trends?

Zoey gets mad at her friend because the other girl is still keeping a wide berth and acting frightened.  Zoey gives the ‘I’m still me’ speech, but…yeah, this feels really fucking stupid on the heels of the “oh no, am I suddenly going to turn into an icky Goth” thought.  Zoey hasn’t even bothered to feel anything significant or process what happened before declaring that she’s still the same person.  She doesn’t even seem to know if is the same person before declaring that she hasn’t changed. 

And why the fuck does she not have a fucking reaction to all this?  Seriously, what is going on?

And where did that dead guy go?  Is he still around and just waiting patiently to be acknowledged again?

We find out that after being marked, Zoey has two chances.  Not choices, as she puts it, because she has no choice in the matter, and it fucking pisses me off when someone says that different outcomes are actually choices.  Choices are things you can chose between, not things that may or may not happen to you and you have no idea which on it will be.  Anyway, either Zoey will turn into a vampyre or her body will reject the change and she’ll die from it. 

She has to go to some special school for new vampyres while she goes through these changes that may or may not kill her.  She seems, at best, mildly put out about the whole thing.  She did call vampyres ‘monsters,’ but again, THERE’S NO REACTION.  She’s not crying, she’s not thinking ‘oh god why me,’ she’s not going after the tracker guy and demanding answers, she’s not in numb shock thinking that if she hides under her bed this’ll all go away, nothing.  She’s mildly put out at her friend’s reaction, then calmly…I don’t know, sitting in the hall and ruminating, I guess. 

You know, if Zoey can’t find a flying fuck to give about turning into a vampyre, I don’t know where I’m going to find one, either.

Zoey then goes on to whine about how all she wants is to fit in, even though she’s a teenager, and fitting in as a teenage is a myth.  No, really.  If you are between the ages of 12 and 8 gajillion, you are not going to fit in, and you’re going to fit even less well in high school, because that’s just the way the world works.  Every fucking person does not fit in.  Because there is no ‘in’ to fit.  That is a myth.  There is nothing you can do to make yourself popular by the Hollywood standard.  No matter what you do – and I’m serious about this, no matter what you do – it will be wrong in the eyes of a large group of people, and the best you can hope for is a circle of peers who think your weirdness is mostly okay.

Except in Zoey’s case, I guess, where the fault lies entirely with her parents and siblings for being so fucking abnormal.  ‘Cause, you know, most teenagers just adore their families, amiright?

Zoey makes a sad face because now she can’t be ‘normal’ and goes outside.  I went back and read through everything again.  Yup, there was not one word about where the Tracker guy went or if he went anywhere.  He shouted and pointed and then the text forgot about him so completely that no one even thought to look for him again.  For all we know, he’s still standing next to her locker holding up a pamphlet that says “How to Survive the Change and Make Friends” but no one will pay attention to him.

When she gets to the outside door, it’s time for boy drama, because fuck that whole vampyre thing, that’s not important.  Seems her crush-turned-asshole is a guy named Heath.  She hasn’t liked him at any point so far in this book, because we open up on him all ready being stupid and her already realizing this.  So…what’s the drama?  Seriously, there’s nothing here.  It’s an already-resolved storyline.  Drop it.

High-pitched girl giggles flitted to me from the parking lot. Great. Kathy Richter, the biggest ho in school, was pretending to smack Heath.

I take it back.  Go to the boring boy drama.  At least that’s better than misogyny and bashing.  Is it bad that I find myself focusing on the connection between ‘giggling’ and ‘ho’?  I swear, there’s a very specific image of ‘high school ho’ that get’s bandied about in books like this, and it includes the habit of giggling a lot.  Since when did ‘giggle’ become shorthand for ‘this is a fake laugh designed to get me into your pants’ instead of ‘hey, I’m happy and having a good time’?

Damnit, I like giggling.  I like people who giggle.  I like cheerful and carefree types.  I like them a hell of a lot more than whiney brats who care more about their public image than they do about the fact that some un-dead guy possibly stealing her soul.  Or, you know, whatever the argument in favor of vampyres being monsters is.

Her car is right next to Heath’s group of friends, so she refuses to go out there.  See, she knows it’ll be bad, because the last time a Tracker came to her school and marked a kid…uh, everyone just backed off and gave him space as he ran out of the building crying.  So…Zoey is refusing to go out to her car because a bunch of people that she doesn’t like will probably just back away from her and give her space.  Yeah, that makes a whole fucking lot of sense.

Good lord, and then Zoey goes into the restroom so she can look in the mirror and describe herself.  Because it’s not like that’s old and cliched or nothing.  Also, who looks in a mirror to check out the mark on their forehead and pauses to think “damn, I got me some hazel eyes today.  Oh, right, monster-mark, back to that now.”

In other news, Zoey is at least part Cherokee.  Even in a bad book, I’m always happy to see a PoC protagonist. 

From this day on my life would never be the same. And for a moment—just an instant—I forgot about the horror of not belonging and felt a shocking burst of pleasure, while deep inside of me the blood of my grandmother’s people rejoiced.

Until the character’s PoCness is just used as a shorthand for…whatever the fuck this is.  Why would Cherokee ancestors be happy that her life is changing?  If I remember correctly, ‘life changed forever’ and ‘marked as different and called monsters’ did not end well for the Native Americans.

Damnit, is this going to turn into that Magical Indians trope? 

In the dedication, PC Cast thanked Kristin for making sure that the teenagers in the book sound like teenagers.  After reading the first chapter, I can say they hit the nail on the head with that one.  And since it’s in first person POV, I’m not even all that upset about it.  Zoey should sound like a teenager, and she should have the priorities of a teenager, and that’s good.  It also makes the book easier for the target audience to connect with.  I don’t like it, but then again, I’ve been out of high school for a number of years now.  I just don’t think that all teenagers are or should be solely concerned with fashion, nor do I think any teenagers would have such a blasé reaction to the events in this chapter.  There’s a difference between “sounding like a teenager” and “sounding like a teenager and then also being fucking stupid.”