I hate this book.  I really, really hate this book.  I hate this book so much that I happily ignored it last week, making excuses about being ‘too busy.’  (I was busy, but not ‘too’ busy.)

I’ve hated the other books on this blog.  That’s kind of the point.  Thing is, I like hating stuff.  I love ranting and tearing things apart.  There’s some catharsis in hate.  For some reason, that catharsis just isn’t in this book.  It’s everything bad about book-hate with none of the associated joy that’s supposed to come from ripping it to shreds.  I think that comes, in part, from how mean this book is. 

But I’m not going to quit.  I’m just going to start summarizing a lot more and combine several chapters in each post.  Just assume as we go along that Zoey is thinking mean, mean, horribly mean things about everyone and everything around her, even if I don’t include it.

Zoey starts her first day of class, beginning with ‘Vampire Sociology.’  Seems they are going to be covering a unit on Amazonian warriors.  I really don’t think this book understands what sociology is.  Anyway, while the class gets started on an assignment, Damien shows Zoey the ropes.  In case you were wondering, even the lockers at this school are Better Than You.

I bitch-slapped him (although I prefer just using the word smacked), and I got detention for it.

Book…what’s wrong with you?  If you prefer to use the word ‘smacked’ then use the word smacked.  No one is forcing you to use gendered insults.

Zoey muses on why all the other kids are scared of getting in trouble, apparently failing to realize that her teachers are all vampires with superhuman powers.  Duh.

So, they start talking about the Amazons, and it quickly becomes clear that they mean the fictional ones from Greek mythology.  Hey, fun fact.  NO ONE KNOWS WHERE AMAZONIA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE.  It was, quite literally, a made-up country.  This book misses an opportunity there, because the fact that they were never a historical society isn’t brought up.

Also, now that we’re into the lesson, I can tell for certain that this isn’t sociology.  This is human geography.  Totally different subject.

They talk about how all vampires have a matriarchal society but we respect and

appreciate the Sons of Night, and consider them our protectors and consorts.  Heaven forbid women protect themselves or any silly shit like that.  We can’t have that.  We need the mens around to protect us, since we’re just weak little ol womens.  Because fuck feminism, that’s why.

Neferet talks to Zoey after class, and Zoey doesn’t raise a word about being reluctant about joining the Mean Girls Group.  Hey, Zoey, weren’t you bragging a few pages ago about how it made no sense to be scared of the adults?  Where did that go?  Why do you just cave here?

Zoey goes to her next class and…uhg, now I’m bored.  Why the fuck do I care about a day in the life of vamp school?  Nothing exciting is even happening, it’s just pages and pages of showing off what a cool school it is.  The best that can be said is that Zoey hasn’t wantonly insulted anyone so far this chapter.

Oh, and Shakespeare was a vampyre, too.  Because fucking everyone is a vampyre in this book.  Because only vampyres are allowed to be cool.  If anyone was ever cool?  Well, they didn’t do it because they were just cool, they did it because they were a vampyre, god damnit.  If you’re not a vampyre, then you can’t be cool.   Because fuck the reader, that’s why.

Blow Job Boy shows up again, and his name is Erik.  He’s super hot and an awesome actor and has some deep connection with Zoey that she can just ‘feel’.  Blah, boring, I don’t care.  Especially since the whole thing comes off as being all in Zoey’s head.  Erik does normal school shit, and Zoey just spontaneously declares that it was ‘special’ and ‘just for her’ for no fucking reason at all.

but I’ve been here for a few months

[a few lines later, same speaker]

When I got here a few weeks ago

Book…just…*sigh*

Blah, blah, blah, school stuff, Erik angst, really shit writing…yeah, that’s all that’s in this chapter.  Moving on.

Chapter Thirteen

This chapter has more school bullshit!  Uhg, I left high school years ago, and I feel like I’m right back in it.  Not in a good way.  In a teeth-grindingly-monotonous way.  Even though this book continues to go on about how the classes are better than your classes and the teachers are cooler than your teachers, I find I just don’t give a shit because it’s still fucking high school.  Unless you are learning how to stab monsters in the face, being the ‘best’ high school just isn’t that interesting.  Maybe I’d care if I actually had to attend these schools, but I don’t.  It’s not an age thing.  It’s a “hey, this book is fictional” thing.  No one is attending this school, so hearing over and over and over again about how it’s vaguely better than you is not that interesting.

Zoey insults nerds again, this time history nerds, and impressed everyone with the ‘obscure’ fact that the Titanic sank in 1912. Also, the professor brings it up by calling it “the tragedy that happened in 1912” as if nothing else happened that year.  I mean, there was a major fire in Istanbul, a US occupation force landed in Nicaragua, a fucking war started.  But those didn’t happen to pretty white people, so who gives a fuck, am I right?

No, I’m not.  Fuck you, book.

So, more class bullshit all about how much better the vamp school is because they read books about the Titanic instead of Great Expectations.  (That was an awesome book and fuck you.)  At the end, the teacher calls out a kid that slept through the whole thing and goes on some more about how vampyre men are supposed to be ‘warriors’ and ‘protectors’ and he’s totally going to fail if he can’t even muster up the willpower to stay awake in class.

Okay, let’s talk about sexism.  It’s a complex thing, mostly because it hardly ever hurts just one gender.  If you disparage one, the other gets collateral damage as well.  The damage is weighted toward women, because life isn’t fair, but it hurts everyone.  So even when you’re doing this to males, it comes around and hurts everyone.  How does saying that men must be ‘warriors’ hurt?  Well, when you cast that as a male-only role, you basically exclude women from it.  If men are the ‘warriors,’ and if you pound in again and again that it’s a dude’s job, you’re sending the message that it’s not a woman’s job.  Indeed, women in this book so far have held the traditional jobs of priestess, teacher, healer, etc.  and haven’t had any ‘masculine’ jobs.  So, this matriarchal society is excluding women from certain jobs and casting them into the same old roles that a patriarchal society does.  That’s hardly progressive.  On top of that, it’s not a great thing to tell men that they have to be warrior-like protectors.  Not only are you limiting their job choices, but you’re encouraging a culture of aggression and violence.  It’s one thing to press that on your actual warriors, but to put that on a whole gender?  Not a good deal.  And on top of that, you’re encouraging your males to view women as physically weaker, and it’s just all around a bad situation if you’ve got a society of males who are aggressive and assume they can physically do whatever they want because they are stronger.  At the same time that the men think women are weaker, the women think the women are weaker, which contributes to an atmosphere where women think they can’t fight back while under attack.  (On account of being weaker, so what’s the point.) 

Really, it’s a multi-level fail.

I could feel the power radiating from her, and it made me wonder why she would ever need a male anything to protect her.

Yeah, we’re all wondering that.  (Don’t you dare come back later and tell me it’s because ‘female power’ is useless or some shit.)

And, indeed, despite all the teacher’s supposed “power,” she’s not got much ability to keep the kid from blowing off her class.  He continues to defy her in this chapter and say he won’t do the work.

There’s hints that sleeping boy (Elliot) has deeper problems, so I’m sure we’ll see him again.

Chapter Fourteen

Hey guys.  MORE SCHOOL BULLSHIT.  Now she’s in fencing class.  By the way, vamp school is still better than your school.

Oh, and the first fighting class we see?  It’s taught by the first male teacher we see.  Man, for supposedly being all about female power, this book fails on all fronts, doesn’t it?  It’s not really about females being powerful so much as it’s about “female power,” that concept where girls have a “special” power that’s different from the boys, because apparently we have to make shit up to give them instead of just have them equal to men in normal ways.

Did you know that fencing is one of the very few sports where women and men can compete on entirely equal terms?”

See?  See what I mean?  Book, fuck off.  The only ‘inequality’ in most sports is the kind that exists solely in people’s heads.  Like how in co-ed soccer, a lot of leagues put in a rule that goal only counts if a woman touches the ball at some point leading up to the score.  It’s not because women suck, it’s because men ignore the female players so we have to force them to stop doing it, and that very rule leads people to believe that women can’t be equal players.  (After all, they think, if they were equal players no one would need a rule, right?  So because there’s a rule, they must be worse, and because they’re worse, we need a rule.  It’s circular logic that can go around and around until I punch someone in the face and then take the ball all the way down the field.)

Blah, blah, some stuff the author copied off a fencing website.  Blah, blah, even the showers are better than you.  More really juvenile banter and focus on women’s appearance.

Ah, time for lunch.  Good lord, are we going to go through every minute of her school day?  Anyway, lunch is better than you, too.

While eating, the rest of Zoey’s group grill her about Erik.  All she can say is “he looked at me,” because that’s all that happened, but the rest of the group agrees that this is somehow meaningful.  (No, really.  I’m not even taking stuff out because I think it’s stupid.  All she says is “he looked at me.”)

The group all agrees that he’s the hottest piece of hot on two legs, but no one (despite going to the school with him for longer) says…oh, I don’t know, that he’s nice to kittens, or that he’s really smart and helps tutor people, or even just that he’s charming.  Nope, we’re going to focus solely on the fact that he’s hot.

And they go on, and on, and on, and on about his hotness.  And also the fact that he used to date Aphrodite, so if Zoey flirts with him, it’ll be awesome and make Aphrodite mad.  They spend more time talking about pissing off one girl than they do about any actual good qualities this man has, and that just is not a good reason to date someone.

We finally get to skip a class, except to point out that the Spanish class is taught by a ‘Hispanic whirlwind.’  Hm, first class we skip, and first teacher who doesn’t get a paragraph of description, and it’s an ethnic teacher… 

Well, on to Equestrian Studies!  Zoey insults people’s looks (nappy hair) and calls feces “poopie.”  And continues to write like a drunk thirteen-year-old.  Seriously, guys, a summary doesn’t do justice to the horrible technical writing, but there’s nothing that would do justice to that.

Turns out that people are selected for the Equestrian class based on some belief that they’ll make good riders, but there’s no explanation on who’s doing the selecting or how.  I guess this will turn out to be a vampyre power, too.

They spend the whole class mucking out stalls, which I approve of.  There’s another random smack to John for being an evil stupid music-hating Christian, which I do not approve of.  And, apparently, Zoey is so good at shoveling poop that the teacher can tell she’s done it before.  I’m not sure how you acquire a skill at, specifically, shoveling horse poop.  Seem more like you’d either be good at shoveling in general, or just disinclined to balk at dirty jobs.  I mean, it’s not a highly specialized skill.  But, no, Zoey actually has shoveled horse “poopie” before, as her grandmother used to have a horse.

Zoey has somehow ‘earned’ the privilege of brushing a horse.  Since she just shoveled poop so damn well, I guess. 

Wanta hear my theory about how my generation could single-handedly wipe out slugs and loser kids from America?“ She (the horse) seemed receptive, so I launched into my Don’t Procreate with Losers speech.…

Great, now she wants to limit the reproductive rights of people she doesn’t approve of.  Zoey, could you possibly sink any lower?

So Zoey stays after class to brush the horse, and SR has to find her afterward and remind her that she’s almost late for temple.  But we’ll get to that tomorrow.