Zoey gets to the oh so important ritual and trades some very un-funny banter with Aphrodite.  It’s very standard: Aphrodite does  a poor job because she’s socially maladjusted and Zoey easily outshines her with her middle-school level of skills.  I still refuse to be impressed by the fact that everyone else in the world is stupid.

More than that, though…it’s very standard.  And right on the heels of Aphrodite having a traumatic vision and Zoey seeing a zombie.  If I’d read this out of context, I wouldn’t be able to tell that anything had happened beforehand.  There’s no sense that this scene is a progression of what came before. Someone hit the emotional-tone reset button.

Okay, I admit that I hadn’t liked Elliott—no one had. The kid was annoying and unattractive (and his ghost or whatever seemed to be carrying on those traits), but I was not glad he died.

You try so hard, Zoey, and yet even at your best you can’t help but be a terrible person.  How about realizing that being unattractive isn’t important and that all his ‘annoying’ traits could be directly linked back to the fact that people were eating him?

If I’m ever leader of the Dark Daughters I won’t make fun of the death of a fledgling, no matter how insignificant.

INSIGNIFICANT!?!?!?!  This, this right here, is the problem.  You think that people can be ‘insignificant,’ rather than that everyone is equally worthy of fucking living.  The problem is not that people aren’t magnanimous enough to be kind to the little people, it’s that you think there are actually little people. 

Could what have happened with Elliott have something to do with the veil between life and death being thinnest, and the fact that he had died on Samhain?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that you were eating him?

Anyway, it’s Samhain, so this ritual is going to take place outside the school grounds.  The kids all sneak out, and Erik explains that the teachers tend to turn a blind eye, as long as they don’t do anything really naughty.

Aphrodite’s laugh was way too sexual to be appropriate, and I swear she touched herself. Right there in front of everyone. Jeesh, she was nasty.

OMG a woman touched her own fucking body, how terrible!  I mean, yeah, there’s a certain amount of decorum one expects in a public setting…but that’s the only word we get on what ‘touching’ Aphrodite did.  Did she just pat her crotch through her clothes?  Grab her own boob?  Lift her skirt up and masturbate?  Accidently brush her hand somewhere near her nether regions?  We’ll never know!  Which just leaves the uncomfortable implication that women are sluts for any and all touching on their own fucking bodies.

my mouth watered when Aphrodite mentioned that there was a refrigerator waiting for us

Zoey has no problem adopting the derogatory term and doesn’t bat an eye about using it.  Because she’s a terrible person.

 (as in one of the Indiana Jones movies—yes, I’m a dork)

…Indiana Jones?  Second only to Sean Connery in “chart-topping kickassery and coolness”?  Now you think Indiana fucking Jones is dork-worthy?

Tell me, Zoey.  In your world, do all the ‘cool’ kids just stare at the ceiling and talk about how much they hate the world?  Are they allowed to like anything?

he reminded me of one of those romantic heroes out of history, like…like…Well, the only two heroes I could think of were Superman and Zorro, and neither of them were truly historical.

You…have issues.  Read more.

The place Aphrodite takes them to is the Philbrook Museum http://philbrook.org/, which makes Zoey freak out.  Because they’ll get in trouble for being there!  But they wouldn’t have gotten in trouble for being on private property?

I didn’t reply, but I really didn’t like that he was so ‘whatever’ about drugging security guards. It just didn’t seem right, even though I could understand the need for it.

No.  There’s no ‘seem’ and no ‘need.’  It isn’t right, full stop. You don’t need to be there, it was not imperative that those guards be drugged for the sake of your little ritual, it’s not like the world is going to end if you can’t get into the museum.  Stop prioritizing your stupid high school drama over the health and safety of other people.

They set up shop in a gazebo on the grounds.  There’s a new student to eat, but they’re kept in a cloak the whole time, so I guess it’ll turn out to be someone Zoey knows.  Probably SR, since she was almost a snack once and now really wants to be around for Zoey’s sake.

It must really take a lot out of a kid to have his blood drained for Aphrodite’s rituals, and I wondered whether that had anything to do with bringing on Elliott’s death.

Hurrah!  You finally figured out the obvious conclusion!  …  Wait, why is the text moving on?  No, go back!  Think more about that!  STOP IGNORING THIS ISSUE!

Especially since now here’s a new kid about to get the same treatment.  Why would anyone think “huh, I wonder if this kills people?” and then continue to do that thing without a second thought?

Aphrodite does a circle thing, because we’re stuck on circles, then starts burning herbs to attract ‘sprits of the ancestors.’  Zoey, being so super special and such, knows that Aphrodite is doing things all wrong about to unleash chaos.  But she doesn’t say anything, and the smoke turns into ghosts.  Zoey even notes that these are real ghosts and not anything like the other two, but still calls the other two ‘ghosts’ anyway.

Then Heath shows up and ruins everything.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hell, knowing Heath he wouldn’t notice anything except her big boobies.

“Cool, a vampyre chick,” Heath said, totally proving me right.

Uh, I’m pretty sure that means he recognized her vampyreness before her ‘big boobies.’

And stop hating on voluptuous women.  Aphrodite didn’t chose to grow those things.

There’s some banter where Zoey tells him to leave but Heath insists that they’re still dating.  Then Aphrodite gets hyper-sexual and tries to entice Heath to come over to her.

My head jerked up to see Aphrodite’s body convulse as gray wisps seeped out of her. She let out a gasp that was a cross between a sob and a scream. The spirits, including the ones that had obviously been possessing her, rushed to the edge of the circle, pressing against it in an effort to break free and get to Heath.

So now Aphrodite is being possessed.  Clearly not in control of her actions and scared of this (sobbing and screaming?).  But Zoey is going to continue calling her a slut. 

Damien pops up out of nowhere and yells at Aphrodite to stop the spirits.  The spirits that are controlling her.  That’ll go over well, I’m sure.

“I won’t stop them. If they want him, they can have him. Better him than me—or any of the rest of us,” Aphrodite said.

Okay, not heroic.  But not evil, either.  She obviously isn’t getting happy-fun-times from this whole being possessed thing.

Even though…uh, I guess that ended?  Spontaneously?

Everyone runs away, which breaks the circle and lets the spirits out.  Oh, and the new to-be-eaten student is SR.  Big shock.

Zoey and her friends quickly run around and make a new circle while the ghosts literally tear into Heath.  Once the circle is done (with Heath and all the ghosts outside of it) Zoey tries to tempt them inside with the goblet of wine/blood.  Uh…if they couldn’t get out of the last one, why would they be able to get in to this one?  Well, it doesn’t matter, they don’t want to get in anyway.  They want to eat Heath.

So instead Zoey orders the spirits to do what she says, and they all get sucked into her circle, because…oh who cares, it makes things wrap up faster. 

After Zoey banishes the ghosts and wraps up her circle, everyone gathers around her and genuflects over the fact that her mark now has extra swirly lines around it, which she will continue to call a tattoo, even though no one tattooed it into being.  They’re on her shoulder, too, just to make her extra-special.

Aphrodite is still there, and everyone rounds on her and calls her horrible names and tells her she’s crap.  Jeesh, couldn’t that wait until she’s had a nap?  I mean, she’s just been possessed by malevolent ghosts, the least you can do is not add a verbal beat-down on top of it.

Aphrodite points out that Zoey likes blood, which is a point Zoey was trying to hide.  Only now she’s totally cool with it and doesn’t care if everyone knows.  Wow, all that build-up for that?  For it to be solved with a completely unprompted 180?  How lazy can one book get?

Well, it can get even lazier.  In the middle of the book, we spent a great deal of time wondering how Zoey was going to ‘out’ Aphrodite.  Turns out she does it by…just flatly declaring that she’s in charge now.  That’s it.  Nothing else.  Just spends three pages calling Aphrodite every hurtful name in the book and then says “yeah, I’m in charge now.”

Our hero, ladies and gents!

Aphrodite points out that only Neferet can change the leader of the Dark Daughters, and conveniently, Neferet picks that moment to step out of the shadows.

Gee, thanks for all your help with the ghosts.  I mean, it’s not like it’s your job to protect these students or nothing.  Or…is it?  We still don’t know what the High Priestess’s job is.

Or why the senior clergy in their religion is located in Tulsa of all places…

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Neferet comes out and heals Erik’s blood scratches from when he tried to protect Heath.  She takes her own sweet time about healing Heath’s injuries. 

Then I heard murmured agreement all around me and realized that the Dark Daughters and Sons had returned and were crowding the stairs of the gazebo. How long had they been watching?

Hm, I’m guess for at least as long as Neferet was standing around watching.

“I am as responsible for what happened here tonight as you are. I have known for years of your selfishness, but I chose to overlook it, hoping that age and the touch of the Goddess would mature you. I was wrong.”

You mean doing absolutely nothing didn’t fix the problem?  *gasp*  No, say it ain’t so!  Gee, I wonder if our “do nothing” approach is flawed in other ways as well.  …nah, that would be unpossible!

With one swift movement, Neferet reached out, grasped the silver and garnet necklace of rank that dangled between Aphrodite’s breasts, and tore it from her neck.

OUCH.  Seriously, you couldn’t just take it off in a normal fashion?  You had to tear it off?

Maybe you should kick Aphrodite in the crotch while you’re at it.  I mean, she’s already on the ground, just go and have at it.

Anyway, Neferet makes Zoey the official new leader of the Dark Daughters.  Then everyone genuflects some more.  Then they all walk back to the school, still talking about how cool everything is, and also Erik shows up and kisses Zoey again.

This is all so self-congratulatory that I’m starting to feel sick.

At the very end, there’s a hint of a nod to the whole plot about Elliot and Elizabeth being zombies.  Zoey figures out that Aphrodite had a vision about it, so she tries to talk to her.  Aphrodite basically says “fuck you,” which…well, yeah, you did just spend several pages calling her a cow and a hag. 

And then that little bit of a hint of an interesting plot just walks off the page and the book ends.

The ONE FUCKING THING that might have been actually interesting just WALKS AWAY on the LAST PAGE.

Good riddance.  I officially have no fucks to give.  I hope the zombies eat Zoey, but hell if I’m going to read any more of these shitty books to find out.