House of Night: The Quest for Cringe Continues - White-Kettle-Shufflepunk reads some terrible vampire books

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

"Oh, it's not junk DNA, magic is real!"? Or was that whole song-and-dance just to score a cheap and stupidly-inaccurate dig at her stepdad, who has now been proven absolutely right that vampires are accursed servants of darkness?

I think it's meant to be both? That is, they're genetic mutants blessed by Nyx.

 

[SpumbleSplabloo]

I'm astounded just how little buildup we got before the standard YA "oh by the way you're special" reveal. Zoey has only met one other vampire at this point; she's already comparatively special. Learning she's magically better this early really spoils the chance for a reveal that the House of Night people are lying and hiding the truth, especially if the common human belief is that it's science and not magic. There could've been so many opportunities for things not quite explainable even by Zoey being a vampire followed by divine intervention when Zoey actually needs it. Passing out on a walk and getting exposited at feels a lot more lame than a "I've been watching over you" reveal in a time of a crisis.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

There's nothing wrong with having pride in your heritage (yes, even if it involves a Confederate-flag)

Come to think of it, Cherokee pride would involve Confederate flags as well, since they threw their lot in with the South during the war.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

Or is that just Bumblebee? He must be starting to miss Stan Witwicky by now.

Bumblebee's been AWOL from Team Prime since Optimus started bringing in that pronoun bullshit in Earthspark.

There's something really schizophrenic about Zoey's backstory and characterization. She supposedly spent half her childhood going to Cherokee ceremonies with her lavender-farming grandmother, but she acts like any spoiled, basic-bitch suburban teenage girl. Grandma Redbird also only seems to exist in relation to Zoey. She doesn't seem to give much of a shit about her daughter and other grandchildren, and despite John supposedly being an ultra-controlling patriarch who doesn't approve of her at all, Zoey can fuck off to her place whenever she likes. She's written less like "Zoey's grandmother, who happens to be Cherokee" and more like a Native American Mr. Tumnus. An imaginary friend who lives on the other side of a magic portal.

Step-Dad is a loser and abuser because he practises his religion, yet doesn't seem to force it on everyone to such a degree that he gives his children a lot of freedom and even buys the insufferable Zoey a car she loves. Yet Grandma sounds like she's a lot worse about her religion and actively shames her daughter for not continuing her traditions and marrying a non-tribe member, but she's good because she inducted Zoey into it when she was a child.

It was incredibly weird to look down on myself. I wasn’t scared. But I should be, shouldn’t I? Didn’t this mean I was dead? Maybe I’d be able to see the Cherokee ghosts better now. Even that thought didn’t scare me. Actually, instead of being afraid it was more like I was an observer, as if none of this could really touch me. (Kinda like those girls who have sex with everyone and think that they’re not going to get pregnant or a really nasty STD that eats your brains and stuff. Well, we’ll see in ten years, won’t we?)

Even a possible near death experience can't stop Zoey from shitting on random people.

Tsi-lu-gi U-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa. Welcome, Daughter. You have done well.

"I'm very impressed by how you drove to a location."

So, is this chick speaking Cherokee and this is just translation convention? If so, why are random words untranslated? Not not, why is sprinkling random Cherokee words in her dialogue like someone who won't shut up about their overseas trip ordering Italian food?

I choose to believe this is going on Animus rules; everything but swear words are translated. Meaning Nyx is probably laying down some hardcore slurs for all we know.

“But I’m sixteen! I can’t even parallel-park! How am I supposed to know how to be your eyes and ears?”

I think the better question would be "Hey, do I get a choice in this? I'm not even old enough to drink yet." "Nope, you're my bitch now for eternity."

Next time, Vampire Hogwarts, at last!

Its Vampyre Hogwash you pleb!

This is really a book? A trilogy of books? Not a fanfic?

No, it isn't a trilogy of books.

It's a twelve book series.

 

[Xerxes IX]

If we're talking examining how much things have changed since 2007, calling two characters retards in a book aimed at tween- and teenage girls jumped out at me. Booktok and other YA-related social media communities would have their heads for that in the current day. (Especially since I have the hunch that's one of the ways Kirsten contributed to making the characters sound like teenagers).

 

[Esquilax]

I thought I had left this dreck behind me in 2010, now you bring it back. Yes I read this series as a teen, yes I'm retarded. The only merit it has is being exponentially more ridiculous with each chapter, like a train wreck that goes on for weeks.

Buckle up buckaroos.

And I saw someone comment about if she's gonna fuck her math teacher and hoo boy I'm sorry but it's worse.

I look forward to reliving my adolescent shame in this thread.

 

[Coo Coo Bird]

Anyway, it's time for Zoey to receive a divine vision:

I looked back down the tunnel. Nothing there except dancing light. I turned to the wall and felt a jolt of electric shock. Whoa! There was a woman sitting cross-legged in front of the wall! She was wearing a white fringed dress that was beaded with the same symbols that were on the wall behind her. She was fantastically beautiful, with long straight hair so black it looked as if it had blue and purple highlights, like a raven’s wing. Her full lips curved up as she spoke, filling the air between us with the silver power of her voice.

Tsi-lu-gi U-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa. Welcome, Daughter. You have done well.

She spoke in Cherokee, but even though I hadn’t practiced the language much in the last couple years I understood the words.

So an Anchuent Cherokian Prophecy is a major part of this series?

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Beautiful, see the cloud, the cloud appear.
Beautiful, see the rain, the rain draw near . . .
The words of the ancient song floated through my mind. I must be dreaming about Grandma Redbird again. It made me feel warm and safe and happy, which was especially nice, since I’d felt so crappy lately . . . except I couldn’t remember exactly why. Huh. Odd.

As far as I can tell, this "ancient song" was invented for this book, which makes sense, seeing as this presumably Cherokee song's lyrics rhyme in English. I'm not sure why they had to make up a song, Cherokee is a lot more documented than most Native American languages, and I assume they... have music.

One or both of the Casts, I assume: Cherokees are so cool. If only they were real, like vampires.

“Zoeybird! Are you awake, baby?”
I blinked my blurry eyes clear to see Grandma Redbird sitting on a little chair close beside my bed.
“Grandma!” I croaked and reached for her hand. My voice sounded as terrible as my head felt. “What happened? Where am I?”
“You’re safe, Little Bird. You’re safe.”

"In a vampire lair!"

At this point, I'm kind of shocked Grandma Redbird is a physical person, and not a spirit made out of windblown leaves, or maybe that tree-grandma from Pocahontas.

“My head hurts.” I reached up and felt the place on my head that was tight and sore, and my fingers found the prick of stitches.

“It should. You scared ten years of my life from me.” Grandma rubbed the back of my hand gently. “All that blood . . .” She shuddered, and then shook her head and smiled at me. “How about you promise not to do that again?”

“Promise,” I said. “So, you found me . . .”

"I promise never to stupidly drive to your place while undergoing a mutagenic event ever again."

“Bloody and unconscious, Little Bird.” Grandma brushed the hair back from my forehead, her fingers lingering lightly on my Mark. “And so pale that your dark crescent seemed to glow against your skin. I knew you needed to be taken back to the House of Night, which is exactly what I did.” She chuckled and the mischievous sparkle in her eyes made her look like a little girl. “I called your mother to tell her that I was returning you to the House of Night, and I had to pretend that my cell phone cut out so I could hang up on her. I’m afraid she’s not happy with either of us.”

I grinned back at Grandma Redbird. Hee hee, Mom was mad at her, too.

Thank you Zoey, I wouldn't have gotten that without your explanation. Do the Casts really have that little faith in their audience's reading comprehension?

“But, Zoey, whatever were you doing out during the daylight? And why didn’t you tell me earlier that you had been Marked?”

With her Anchuent Cherokian telepathy? She was Marked only hours earlier, and headed to your place as soon as she could.

struggled to sit up, grunting at the pain in my head. But, thankfully, it seemed I’d stopped coughing. Must be because I’m finally really here—at the House of Night . . . But the thought disappeared as my mind processed all of what Grandma had said.

“Wait, I couldn’t have told you any earlier. The Tracker came to school today and Marked me. I went home first. I really hoped Mom would understand and take my side.” I paused, remembering again the awful scene with my parents. In total understanding, Grandma squeezed my hand. “She and John basically locked me in my room while they called our shrink and started the prayer tree.”

Grandma grimaced.

“So I crawled out my window and came straight to you,” I concluded.

“I’m glad you did, Zoeybird, but it just doesn’t make any sense.”

Thank you.

I know,” I sighed. “I can’t believe I got Marked, either. Why me?”
“That’s not what I mean, baby. I’m not surprised you were Tracked and Marked. The Redbird blood has always held strong magic; it was only a matter of time before one of us was Chosen.

Should we assume the Redbirds were an ostracized line of Renfield-ish vampire servants and that's why Zoey's mother didn't want anything to do with their traditions?

What I mean is that it makes no sense that you were just Marked. The crescent isn’t an outline. It’s completely filled in.”

That's right, not only has Zoey been directly visited and anointed by a goddess who told her she was basically the most important woman who ever lived, she has an advanced tramp-stamp. At this rate, she's going to find out she's Palpatine's granddaughter and the Timeless Child before chapter ten.

“That’s impossible!”

“Look for yourself, U-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa.” She used the Cherokee word for daughter, suddenly reminding me very much of a mysterious, ancient goddess.

These people fetishize Indians so much, their F-list probably just reads "Cherokee." Also, Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan getting stuck by bees, for some reason.

Grandma searched through her purse for the antique silver compact she always carried.

It was payment to her great-grandpappy for the sale of fifty buck-niggers to the white-man.

Without saying anything else, she handed it to me. I pushed the little clasp. It popped open to show me my reflection . . . the familiar stranger . . . the me who wasn’t quite me. Her eyes were huge and her skin was too white, but I barely noticed that. It was the Mark that I couldn’t quit staring at, the Mark that was now a completed crescent moon, filled in perfectly with the distinctive sapphire blue of the vampyre tattoo. Feeling like I was still moving through a dream, I reached up and let my fingers trace the exotic-looking Mark and I seemed to feel the Goddess’s lips against my skin again.

Apparently becoming a vampyre makes you the product of several generations of unethical anime-girl breeding. It's interesting that, as Zoey whitters on and on about her Cherokee heritage, she's been getting paler and paler. With every moment, she becomes more and more her platonic ideal: a lily-white girl constantly bragging about how in tune she is with her native ancestors.

Also, I feel like noting that Kristen Cast looks like this:

Feel free to read whatever you want into that.

“What does it mean?” I said, unable to look away from the Mark.

“We were hoping you would have an answer to that question, Zoey Redbird.”

Her voice was amazing. Even before I looked up from my reflection I knew she would be unique and incredible. I was right. She was movie-star beautiful, Barbie beautiful. I’d never seen anyone up close who was so perfect. She had huge, almond-shaped eyes that were a deep, mossy green. Her face was an almost perfect heart and her skin was that kind of flawless creaminess that you see on TV. Her hair was deep red—not that horrid carrot-top orange-red or the washed-out blond-red, but a dark, glossy auburn that fell in heavy waves well past her shoulders.

Because no attractive person has ever had orange or strawberry blond hair. One thing you'll come to understand about Zoey is that she's physically incapable of complimenting someone without insulting someone else in the process. Also, unless you're specifically talking about Margot Robbie, is comparing someone to Barbie usually meant to be flattering? When applied to living people, it usually denotes a shallow or plastic affect. Which might actually be more appropriate for a vampire, but I doubt that was what they going for here.

Her body was, well, perfect. She wasn’t thin like the freak girls who puked and starved themselves into what they thought was Paris Hilton chic. (“That’s Hott.” Yeah, okay, whatever, Paris.)

Haha, those girls have serious eating disorders! It's what killed Karen Carpenter! Hilarious!

This woman’s body was perfect because she was strong, but curvy. And she had great boobs. (I wish I had great boobs.)
“Huh?” I said. Speaking of boobs—I was totally sounding like one. (Boob . . . hee hee).

Oh, so this was the girl Danny was trying to become.

The woman smiled at me and showed amazingly straight, white teeth—without fangs. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that in addition to her perfection she had a sapphire crescent moon neatly tattooed in the middle of her forehead, and from it, swirls of lines that reminded me of ocean waves framed her brows, extending down around her high cheekbones.

She was a vampyre.

I know vampire fiction is already violating biology just by its very existence, but how do you expect a large predator to take down another large predator with opposable thumbs without some kind of advantage like claws or fangs? There's a reason both of White Wolf's vampire games make lacking fangs a flaw you can take for extra freebie points. If you're worried about the fangs being ugly or whatever, just make them retractable, again, like White Wolf does. At least in Twilight, the vampires usually fed by ripping people in half and drinking the resulting blood fountain. Twilight vampires could be kind of metal, actually.

“I said, we were hoping you would have some explanation about why a fledgling vampyre that hasn’t Changed has the Mark of a mature being on her forehead.”
Without her smile and the gentle concern in her voice her words would have seemed harsh. Instead, what she said came off as worried and a little confused.
“So I’m not a vampyre?” I blurted.

Wouldn't it be amazing if Zoey was actually just extra-tasty to vampires?

“Not yet, Zoey, but I would say that already having your Mark complete is an excellent omen.”
“Oh . . . I . . . well, good. That’s good,” I babbled.
Thankfully, Grandma saved me from total humiliation.
“Zoey, this is the High Priestess of the House of Night, Neferet. She’s been taking good care of you while you’ve been”—Grandma paused, obviously not wanting to say the word unconscious—“while you’ve been asleep.”

Is "unconscious" a taboo word in Sylvia's vampire-worshiping Cherokee sect?

“Welcome to the House of Night, Zoey Redbird,” Neferet said warmly.

I glanced at Grandma and then back at Neferet. Feeling more than a little lost I stuttered, “That’s—that’s not really my name. My last name is Montgomery.”

“Is it?” Neferet said, raising her amber-tinted brows. “One benefit of beginning a new life is that you have the opportunity to start over—to make choices you weren’t given before. If you could choose, what would your true name be?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Zoey Redbird.”

Wouldn't it make more sense to do this after they've finished turning into vampires as a kind of adulthood rite? Not much of a new life if you die a week later from vampire feline AIDs or whatever.

“Then from this moment on, you shall be Zoey Redbird. Welcome to your new life.” She reached out like she wanted to shake my hand, and I automatically offered mine. But instead of taking my hand, she grasped my forearm, which was weird but somehow felt right.

Her touch was warm and firm. Her smile blazed with welcome. She was amazing and awe-inspiring. Actually, she was what all vampyres are, more than human—stronger, smarter, more talented.

So why are scientists trying to cure it? Surely they'd be focusing on keeping fledglings alive during their transition, or maybe turning it into a pill. Also, talent seems really hard to quantify.

“Th-thank you. It’s nice to meet you,” I said, trying really hard to sound at least semi-intelligent and normal.

“As I was telling your grandmother earlier, we have never had a fledgling come to us in such an unusual manner before—unconscious and with a completed Mark. Can you remember what happened to you, Zoey?”

The Trackers don't bother trying to transport fledglings to the House of Night, and they grow steadily weaker and sicker until they get there. You telling me no one else has ever arrived unconscious?

opened my mouth to tell her that I totally remembered it—falling and hitting my head . . . seeing myself like I was a floating spirit . . . following the weirdly visible words into the cave . . . and finally meeting the Goddess Nyx. But right before I said the words I got a weird feeling, like someone had just hit me in my stomach. It was clear and it was specific, and it was telling me to shut up.

“I—I really don’t remember much—” I broke off and my hand found the sore spot where my stitches poked out. “At least not after I hit my head. I mean, up until then I remember everything. The Tracker Marked me; I told my parents and got into a ginormic fight with them; then I ran away to my grandma’s place. I was feeling really sick, so when I climbed the path up to the bluffs . . .” I remembered the rest of it—all of the rest of it—the spirits of the Cherokee people, the dancing and the campfire. Shut up! the feeling screamed at me. “I—I guess I slipped because I was coughing so much, and hit my head. The next thing I remember is Grandma Redbird singing and then I woke up here.” I finished in a rush. I wanted to look away from the sharpness of her green-eyed gaze, but the same feeling that was ordering me to be quiet was also clearly telling me that I had to keep eye contact with her, that I had to try really hard to look like I wasn’t hiding anything, even though I didn’t really have a clue why I was hiding anything.

I love it when characters are entirely motivated by vague hunches and divine commands. Way more interesting than if they use their brains.

“It’s normal to experience memory loss with a head wound.” Grandma said matter-of-factly, breaking the silence.

I could have kissed her.

“Yes, of course it is,” Neferet said quickly, her face losing its sharpness. “Do not fear for your granddaughter’s health, Sylvia Redbird. All will be well with her.”

"Unless she fails to transition and dies horribly, which can happen at any time."

She spoke to Grandma respectfully, and some of the tension that had been building inside me loosened. If she liked Grandma Redbird, she had to be an okay person, or vampyre or whatever. Right?

So, all you have to do to gain Zoey's trust is feign politeness to her grandmother. This seems easy to game.

“As I’m sure you already know, vampyres”—Neferet paused and smiled at me—“even fledgling vampyres, have unusual powers of recovery. Her healing is proceeding so well that it is perfectly safe for her to leave the infirmary.” She looked from Grandma to me. “Zoey, would you like to meet your new roommate?”

No. I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes.”

But Zoey, think of all the new insult opportunities!

“Are you sure you shouldn’t keep her here another day for observation?” Grandma asked.
“I understand your concern, but I assure you Zoey’s physical wounds are already healing at a pace you would find extraordinary.”
She smiled at me again and even though I was scared and nervous and just plain freaked out I smiled back at her. It seemed like she was genuinely happy that I was there. And, truthfully, she made me think turning into a vampyre might not be such a bad thing.

Wow, becoming immortal, extraordinarily beautiful, talented, and powerful might not be a raw deal? Who would've thought.

Grandma, I’m fine. Really. My head just hurts a little, and the rest of me feels way better.” I realized as I said it that it was true. I’d completely stopped coughing. My muscles didn’t ache anymore. I felt perfectly normal except for a little headache.

Then Neferet did something that not only surprised me, but made me instantly like her—and begin to trust her. She walked over to Grandma and spoke slowly and carefully.

“Sylvia Redbird, I give you my solemn oath that your granddaughter is safe here. Each fledgling is paired with an adult mentor. To ensure my oath to you I will be Zoey’s mentor. And now you must entrust her to my care.”

So, Neferet is clearly the villain. Is that even a spoiler? This is written like a barmy Harry Potter fanfic, why not have a Manipulative Dumbledore?

Neferet placed her fist over her heart and bowed formally to Grandma. My grandma hesitated for only a moment before answering her.

“I will hold you to your oath, Neferet, High Priestess of Nyx.”

Not the oath about Zoey's safety, the oath to feed Sylvia some of her cursed vitae once a month to maintain her pseudo-immortality. She then fucks off, presumably to lure more virgins into traps for the next orgy.

Well, Zoey, are you ready to begin your new life?”

That's not a creepy way to put it.

I looked up at her and thought again how amazing she was. If I actually Changed into a vampyre, would I have her confidence and power, or was that something only a High Priestess got? For an instant it flashed though my mind how awesome it would be to be a High Priestess—and then my sanity returned. I was just a kid. A confused kid at that, and definitely not High Priestess material.

Nobody even suggested that!

I just want to figure out how to fit in here, but Neferet had certainly made what was happening to me seem easier to bear.

By... being hot and not calling your grandma a redskin?

The chapter ends here, but it'd be cruel not to give you guys a little tour of Vampire Hogwarts.

"What time is it?”
We were walking down a narrow hall that curved gently. The walls were made of an odd mixture of dark stone and jutting brick. Every so often flickering gaslights that hung from old-fashioned-looking black iron sconces stuck out of the wall, giving off a soft yellow glow that was, thankfully, really easy on my eyes. There were no windows in the hall, and we didn’t meet anyone else (even though I kept peeking nervously around, imagining my first glimpse of vampyre kids).

We don't get plastic straws anymore, but the fucking vampires get to use a North Sea worth of gas for lighting.

It is nearly four A.M., which means classes have been out for almost an hour.” Neferet said, and then she smiled slightly at what I’m sure was my totally shocked expression.

Wow, who would've guessed vampires would do shit... at night! I thought they'd prefer to blister in the sunlight walking between classes!

“Classes begin at eight P.M., and end at three A.M.,” she explained. “Teachers are available until three thirty A.M. to give students extra help. The gym is open until dawn, the exact time of which you will always know as soon as you have completed the Change. Until then dawn time is clearly posted in all the classrooms, common rooms, and gathering areas, including the dining hall, library, and gym. Nyx’s Temple is, of course, open at all hours, but formal rituals are held twice a week right after school. The next ritual will be tomorrow.” Neferet glanced at me and her slight smile warmed. “It seems overwhelming now, but you’ll catch on quickly. And your roommate will help you, as will I.”

Not the most impressive vampire superpower, probably more handy for the kind that actually die in sunlight or are forced to sleep during the day.

I was just getting ready to open my mouth to ask her another question when an orange ball of fur ran into the hall and without a sound, hurled itself into Neferet’s arms. I jumped and made a stupid little squee sound—then I felt like a total retard when I saw that the orange ball of fur was not a flying boogieman or whatever, but a massively big cat.

Neferet laughed and scratched the fur ball’s ears. “Zoey, meet Skylar. He’s usually prowling around here waiting to launch himself at me.”

“That’s the biggest cat I’ve ever seen,” I said, reaching my hand out to let him sniff me.

“Careful, he’s a known biter.”

Before I could jerk my hand out of the way, Skylar started rubbing his face on my fingers. I held my breath.

Neferet tilted her head to the side, as if she was listening to words in the wind. “He likes you, which is definitely unusual. He doesn’t like anyone except me. He even keeps the other cats away from this end of campus. He’s really a terrible bully,” she said fondly.

No wonder it likes Zoey then. Also, Nanny Ogg and Hermione Granger called. They both want their cat back.

I carefully scratched Skylar’s ears like Neferet had been doing. “I like cats,” I said softly. “I used to have one, but when my mom got remarried I had to give it to Street Cats to be adopted. John, her new husband, doesn’t like cats.”

“I’ve found that the way a person feels about cats—and the way they feel about him or her in return—is usually an excellent gauge by which to measure a person’s character.”

Remember kids, if you're allergic to cats, you might as well be the Devil.

I looked up from the cat to meet her green eyes and saw that she understood a lot more about freaky family issues than she was saying. It made me feel connected to her, and automatically my stress level relaxed a little. “Are there a lot of cats here?”

Some people's parents beat and molest them, others make them give away cats. It's all the same, really.

“Yes, there are. Cats have always been closely allied with vampyres.”

Okay, actually I already knew that. In World History with Mr. Shaddox (better known as Puff Shaddy, but don’t tell him) we learned that in the past cats had been slaughtered because it was thought that they somehow turned people into vampyres.

That is an actual real world myth, where if a cat jumped over your grave, you rose as a vampire. Again, I'm not sure how this myth came about in-universe, because vampires here don't sleep in coffins, or spend any time dead as part of their transformation well, sorta-kinda, but we'll get to that. I am however reminded of how--because most cats were owned by the nobility--the common folk would sometimes burn cats as a kind of protest against the rich. Don't know why that feels relevant here. Total mystery.

Yeah, okay, talk about ridiculous. More evidence of the stupidity of humans . . . the thought popped into my mind, shocking me by how easily I’d already started thinking of “normal” people as “humans,” and therefore something different than me.

In most stories that'd be a sign something was dreadfully, horribly wrong.

“Do you think I could have a cat?” I asked.
“If one chooses you, you will belong to him or her.”
“Chooses me?”
Neferet smiled and stroked Skylar, who closed his eyes and purred loudly. “Cats choose us; we don’t own them.” As if to demonstrate what she said was true, Skylar jumped out of her arms and, with a stuck-up flick of his tail, disappeared down the hall.

The only way this could be more of a Facebook meme is if Minions were involved.

Neferet laughed. “He’s really awful, but I do adore him. I think I would, even were it not part of my gift from Nyx.”

“Gift? Skylar is a gift from the Goddess?”

“Yes, in a way. Every High Priestess is given an affinity—what you would probably think of as special powers—by the Goddess. It’s part of the way we identify our High Priestesses. The affinities can be unusual cognitive skills, like reading minds or having visions and being able to predict the future. Or the affinity can be for something in the physical realm, like a special connection to one of the four elements, or to animals. I have two Goddess gifts. My main affinity is for cats; I have a connection with them that is unusual, even for a vampyre. Nyx has also given me unusual powers of healing.” She smiled. “Which is why I know you’re healing well—my gift told me.”

It'd be pretty funny if Neferet's healing power was just telling how fast someone was recuperating.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” was all I could think to say. My head was already reeling from the events of the past day.

“Come on. Let’s get you to your room. I’m sure you’re hungry and tired. Dinner will start in”—Neferet cocked her head to the side as if someone was weirdly whispering the time to her—“an hour.” She gave me a knowing smile. “Vampyres always know what time it is.”

“That’s cool, too.”

The Casts have a very weird idea of what counts as impressive.

That, my dear fledgling, is just the tip of the ‘cool’ iceberg.”
I hoped her analogy didn’t have anything to do with Titanic-sized disasters.

Why would you even think that?

“So, wait. You said that classes start at eight? At night?” Okay, I’m usually not this slow, but some of this was like she was speaking a foreign language to me. I was having a hard time getting it.

Do the readers really need to have it explained that vampires like nighttime?

“Once you take a moment to think about it you’ll understand that having classes at night is only logical. Of course you must know that vampyres, adult or fledgling, don’t explode, or any other such fictional nonsense, if subjected to direct sunlight, but it is uncomfortable for us. Wasn’t the sunlight already difficult for you to bear today?”

I hate to repeat myself, but vampires exploding in sunlight was invented for a film. It wasn't even really a "myth" in real life folklore, so I have no clue how they got the idea here.

I nodded. “My Maui Jims didn’t even help much.” Then I added quickly, feeling moronic again, “Uh, Maui Jims are sunglasses.”

“Yes, Zoey,” Neferet said patiently. “I know sunglasses. Very well, actually.”

"I'm just as obsessed with name-brands as you." Seriously, wouldn't most people just say "sunglasses" here?

“Oh, God, I’m sorry I—” I broke off, wondering whether it was okay for me to say “God.” Would it offend Neferet, a High Priestess who wore her Goddess Mark so proudly? Hell, would it offend Nyx? Oh, God. What about saying “hell”? It was my favorite cuss word ever. (Okay, it was really the only cuss word I used regularly.) Could I still say it? The People of Faith preached that vampyres worshiped a false goddess and that they were mostly selfish, dark creatures who cared about nothing except money and luxury and drinking blood and they were all certainly going straight to hell, so wouldn’t that mean that I should watch how and where I used . . .

Given one of God's own commandants is not to use His name in vain, I'm not sure why a bunch of pagan vampires would enforce it on His behalf. Or do they work on What We Do in the Shadows rules and even saying the name makes their tongues light on fire?

When you’re a mature vampyre your life will seem your own again. You’ll make your own choices; go your own way; follow the path down which your heart and soul and talents lead you.”
“If I become a mature vampyre.”
“You will, Zoey.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Neferet’s eyes found the darkened Mark on my forehead. “Nyx has chosen you. For what, we do not know. But her Mark has been clearly placed upon you. She would not have touched you only to see you fail.”

"Forget about all the kids she also marks but lets die, those are just Nyx's little joke."

I remembered the Goddess’s words, Zoey Redbird, Daughter of Night, I name you my eyes and ears in the world today, a world where good and evil are struggling to find balance, and looked quickly away from Neferet’s sharp gaze, wishing desperately that I knew why my gut was still telling me to keep my mouth shut about my meeting with the Goddess.

Gee, I wonder why.

Neferet,” she said. She listened for a little while and I saw her forehead wrinkle, and her eyes narrow. “No, you were right to call me. I’ll come back and check on her.” And she flipped the phone shut. “I’m sorry, Zoey. One of the fledglings broke her leg earlier today. It seems she’s having trouble resting, and I should go back and be sure all is well with her. Why don’t you follow this hallway around to the left until you come to the main door? You can’t miss it—it’s large and made of very old wood. Right outside is a stone bench. You can wait there for me. I won’t be long.”

Luckily, vampires can tell the age of wood by sight, I guess.

Unfortunately at the next right-hand turn off the hall I didn’t avert my eyes. Okay, so the reason made sense. I heard something. To be more specific, I heard a laugh. It was a soft, girly laugh that for some reason made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It also made me stop walking. I peeked down the hall and thought I saw movement in the shadows.
Zoey . . . My name was whispered from the shadows.
I blinked in surprise. Had I really heard my name or was I imagining things? The voice was almost familiar. Could it be Nyx again? Was the Goddess calling my name? Almost as afraid as I was intrigued, I held my breath and took a few steps into the side hallway.
As I walked around the gentle bend I saw something ahead of me that made me stop and automatically move closer to the wall. In a little alcove not far from me were two people. At first I couldn’t make my mind process what I was seeing; then in a rush I understood.

There's a scene anyone who's read Marked will tell you about, usually in hushed tones of horror. It's probably the most infamous part of the book. If it was published today, it would get it cancelled from orbit.

The man—and then with a little jolt of additional shock I realized that he wasn’t a man, he was a teenager—not more than a year or so older than me. He was standing with his back pressed against the stone of the alcove. His head was tilted back and he was breathing hard. His face was in the shadows, but even though he was only partially visible I could see that he was handsome. Then another breathy little laugh drew my eyes downward.

She was on her knees in front of him. All I could see of her was her blond hair. There was so much of it that it looked like she was wearing it as some kind of ancient veil. Then her hands moved up, running along the guy’s thighs.

Go! my mind screamed at me. Get out of there! I started to take a step back, and then his voice made me freeze.

“Stop!”

It's Zoey's first day at Vampire Hogwarts, and she's already run into a girl mouth-raping a dude in the halls. Truly, this is an amazing school.

My eyes got huge because for a second I thought he was talking to me.

“You don’t really want me to.”

I felt almost dizzy with relief when she spoke. He was talking to her, not me. They didn’t even know I was there.

“Yes, I do.” It sounded as if he was grinding his words from between his teeth. “Get off your knees.”

“You like it—you know you like it. Just like you know you still want me.”

Her voice was all husky and trying to be sexy, but I could also hear the whine in it. She sounded almost desperate. I watched her fingers move, and my eyes widened in amazement when she drew the nail of her index finger down his thigh. Unbelievably, her fingernail slashed through his jeans, just like it was a knife, and a line of fresh blood appeared, startling in its liquid redness.

And make no mistake, he doesn't want this. At all.

“No!” He snapped, putting his hands on her shoulders and trying to push her away from him.

“Oh, quit pretending,” she laughed again, a mean, sarcastic sound. “You know we’ll always be together.” She reached up with her tongue and licked along the line of blood.

I shuddered; against my will I was completely mesmerized.

“Cut it out!” He was still pushing at her shoulders. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you’re really starting to piss me off. Why can’t you understand? We’re not doing this anymore. I don’t want you.”

“You want me! You’ll always want me!” She unzipped his pants.

Eventually, Zoey manages to tear herself away from the scene. So, what's her reaction to witnessing such a violation?

Yes, I was aware of the whole oral sex thing. I doubt if there’s a teenager alive in America today who isn’t aware that most of the adult public think we’re giving guys blow jobs like they used to give guys gum (or maybe more appropriately suckers). Okay, that’s just bullshit, and it’s always made me mad. Of course there are girls who think it’s “cool” to give guys head. Uh, they’re wrong. Those of us with functioning brains know that it is not cool to be used like that.

To go on a rant about how oral sex is degrading for the girl. When she just saw a girl forcing herself on a boy! Did fucking Graywytch write this scene? Also, Zoey, an supposed non-religious teenage girl, stops to give us a speech about how blowjobs are evil... because they don't get you off while you give one, I guess. It's like Ayn Rand's theory of sexual pleasure.

Okay, so I knew about the whole blow job issue. I’ d definitely never seen one. So, what I had just seen had definitely freaked me out. But what had freaked me out more than the fact that the blonde was doing the nasty to him was the way I’d responded to seeing the guy’s blood.
I’d wanted to lick it, too.
And that’s just not normal.

Neither is seeing a chick mouth-fucking a guy without his consent in a fucking school hallway! That girl was Aphrodite, the Alpha Bitch antagonist. Any of you who've been reading along with me should know by now that, in any sane book, Zoey would be that character, so apparently the only way the Casts could think to make Aphrodite look worse was to have her essentially rape someone as her character intro. The truly terrifying thing? It doesn't work.

That bizarre interlude done, Neferet returns, cures Zoey's headache, and it's time to continue the tour. Zoey doesn't mention the sex-crime she just saw, because why would she at this point?

Neferet opened the thick wooden door and we walked out into a large courtyard that fronted the school. She stepped aside and let me gawk. Teenagers wearing uniforms that somehow looked cool and unique while still being similar walked in small groups across the courtyard and along the sidewalk.

Doesn't a uniform not being... uniform defeat the purpose?

I could hear the deceptively normal sound of their voices as they laughed and talked. I kept staring from them to the school, not sure which to gawk at first. I chose the school. It was the less intimidating of the two (and I was scared I’d see him). The place was like something out of a creepy dream. It was the middle of the night, and it should have been deeply dark, but there was a brilliant moon shining above the huge old oaks that shaded everything. Freestanding gaslights housed in tarnished copper fixtures followed the sidewalk that ran parallel to the huge red brick and black rock building. It was three stories tall and had a weirdly high roof that pointed up and then flattened off at the top. I could see that heavy drapes had been opened and soft yellow lights made shadows dance up and down the rooms, giving the entire structure an alive and welcoming look. A round tower was attached to the front of the main building, furthering the illusion that the place was much more castle-like than school-like. I swear, a moat would have looked more like it belonged there than a sidewalk ringed by thick azalea bushes and a neat lawn.

Of course the school looks more like a castle than any old architectural style that actually flourished in America, because then it wouldn't be Vampire Hogwarts.

Across from the main building was a smaller one that looked older and church-like. Behind it and the old oaks that shaded the schoolyard I could see the shadow of the enormous stone wall that surrounded the entire school. In front of the church building was a marble statue of a woman who was wearing long, flowing robes.

“Nyx!” I blurted.

So, was the sculptor visited by Nyx as well? Or was she specifically appearing to Zoey in that visage?

Neferet lifted one eyebrow in surprise.

"How could she have guessed that the goddess-looking statue in the middle of this school for vampyres might be Nyx, the goddess of vampyres?"

Neferet lifted one eyebrow in surprise. “Yes, Zoey. That is a statue of the Goddess, and the building behind it is her temple.” She motioned for me to walk with her down the sidewalk and gestured expansively at the impressive campus that stretched before us. “What is known today as the House of Night was built in the neo-French-Norman style, with stones imported from Europe. It originated in the mid-1920s as an Augustine monastery for the People of Faith. Eventually it was converted into Cascia Hall, a private preparatory school for affluent human teenagers. When we decided that we must open a school of our own in this part of the country, we bought it from Cascia Hall five years ago.”

Okay, so, at first, you probably would assume that the "People of Faith" are a specific, probably vaguely Protestant Christian denomination. But Augustine monks are a specifically Catholic thing, and John definitely didn't seem like a Catholic. So, it looks like "People of Faith" is just this book's dumbass name for Christianity. I'm not sure why they bothered. Maybe they were afraid people would be upset at all the Christian-bashing in the series? If so, thinking that would fool them just makes it more offensive. Also, does that mean that statue used to be of the Virgin Mary?

I only vaguely recalled the days when it had been a stuck-up private school—actually the only reason I’d ever thought about it at all was that I remembered hearing the news that a whole herd of kids who went to Cascia Hall had been busted for drugs, and how shocked the adults had been. Whatever. No one else had been shocked that those rich kids were majorly into drugs.

Because grown-ups never trade sordid gossip about rich people.

“I’m surprised they sold it to you guys,” I said absently.

Her laugh was low and a little dangerous. “They didn’t want to, but we made their arrogant headmaster an offer even he couldn’t refuse.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant, but her laugh gave me a skin-crawly feeling.

In other words, they used their inhuman brutality to force them to give up the school to them.

And, plus, I was busy. I couldn’t stop staring. Okay the first thing I noticed was that everyone who had a solid vampyre tattoo was incredibly good-looking. I mean, it was totally insane. Yes, I knew that vampyres were attractive. Everyone knew that. The most successful actors and actresses in the world were vampyres. They were also dancers and musicians, authors and singers. Vampyres dominated the arts, which is one reason they had so much money—and also one reason (of many) that the People of Faith considered them selfish and immoral. But really, they’re just jealous that they’re not as good-looking.

Up until now, Zoey has talked about vampires like they shadowy, mysterious beings who outsiders knew very little about. She fully expected the House of Night to offer classes in murder and shit. Now, she's telling us vampires are the very tip of the social and economic pyramid, and they're about as common in popular media as black people in music videos. Not only that, she's talking about people claiming vampires are actually scary and evil as though she's always known it was nonsense and slander. It's like everything before these last couple of chapters came from a completely different, if equally stupid book.

Also, naturally, the only reason Zoey can think why someone would object to all art and culture being controlled by a secretive cult of superhumans is... they're ugly. Actually, while we're at it, how has Christianity (or Faithianity or whatever it's called here) managed to survive? Imagine if not only was every celebrity was an open Scientologist, but their faith gave them actual, demonstrable psychic powers and immortality. The Trackers shouldn't be using Obfuscate to avoid bigots or whatever, they should be using it to avoid people flocking to be Marked. Every parent would pray to Nyx that one of their kids be Chosen. A family's status and prospects would be entirely determined by how many vampires are among them, like a global version of Clan Giovanni from Masquerade. On top of all that... how does filming during daytime work if all the best (or at least bankable) actors are vampires?

The People of Faith would go see their movies, plays, concerts, buy their books and their art, but at the same time they’d talk about them and look down at them, and God knows they’d never, ever mix with them. Hello—can you say hypocrites?

Because enjoying a film means you approve of everything the people in it do. Also, I don't think most people "choose" not to interact with rich, famous people, they just don't get the opportunity.

Anyway, being surrounded by so many totally gorgeous people made me want to crawl under a bench, even though many of them greeted Neferet and then smiled and said hello to me, too. Between hesitantly returning their hellos I snuck looks at the kids who walked by us. Each of them nodded respectfully to Neferet. Several of them bowed formally to her and crossed their fists over their hearts, which made Neferet smile and bow slightly in response. Okay, the kids weren’t as gorgeous as the adults. Sure, they were nice-looking—interesting actually, with their crescent moon outlines, and their uniforms that looked more like runway designs than school clothes—but they didn’t have the glossy, inhumanly attractive light that radiated from inside each of the adult vampyres. Uh, I did notice that, as I had suspected, their uniforms had a lot of basic black in them (you’d think that a group of people so up on the arts would recognize a cliché when one goes walking by in boring Goth black. I’m just saying . . . ).

Has nobody told this little idiot black goes with anything?

But I suppose if I was going to be honest I’d have to admit it looked good on them—the black mixed with tiny plaid lines of deep purple, dark blue, and emerald green. Each uniform had an ornate design embroidered in gold or silver on either its jacket breast pocket or blouse pocket. I could tell that some of the designs were the same, but I couldn’t see exactly what they were. Also, there was a weirdly large amount of kids with long hair. Seriously, the girls had long hair, the guys had long hair, the teachers had long hair, even the cats that wandered across the sidewalk from time to time were long-haired balls of fur. Odd. Good thing I’d talked myself out of getting my hair cut in that short duck butt style Kayla had cut hers off in last week.

Do the Casts think cats get haircuts? Or do vampires just hate shorthaired breeds?

I also noticed that the adults and the kids had one other thing in common—their eyes all lingered with obvious curiosity on my Mark. Great. So I was beginning my new life as an anomaly, which figured about as much as it sucked.

At least Harry's eye-catching visual mark was a scar from a murder attempt, not the mark of Wizard-God's favour.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

All this talk about vamp"y"re movie stars and evul People of Faith has got me thinking four words - "Mel Gibson: Vampire Hunter".

 

[IridiumDragon06]

Woohoo, rapid-fire updates!

So, Zoey died, right? She IDed the Tracker as dead first thing, so clearly vampires are not purely long-haired sparkly-poos here. And getting a divine vision because you fucking died makes slightly more sense. Hell, if I was giving these books credit for sense, I'd say from what I've seen that you normally spend time leveling your vampire powers as a neophyte to make you strong enough to die and come back for the first time, and that's when you get your full mark normally.

Actually, I'm now very curious about the actual role of Trackers. Their names imply they find nascent vampires, they don't cause them, so presumably, off in rural Mongolia (or any place where the sparkle-kin do not deign to go), people manifest with sparkle forehead lights and then just fucking die a few days later.

And if cats actually are literally the favored familiar spirits of hellspawn, then burning them does make sense. And if a Tracker is seeing through the eyes of cats to look for the signs of nascent vampires, then yes, it's entirely reasonable that people would make the association. Plus, it's fucking magic, how the hell does cats passing on vampirism make less sense than the grim intonation of a Tracker making you break out in very-precisely-line-art day-glo acne?

Also, I feel like I'm getting a better feel for this being a mother-daughter collaborative novel now, and it feels like the mother is just being incredibly passive-aggressive towards her daughter, with the "This is how you and yours think, of course." voice, but with her own shrillness coming through with the rants about promiscousness and teenage drinking. I could also buy that as a voice from a teenager in an era in which blue-haired church ladies were a dominant cultural force, but I absolutely don't buy it as natural-sounding from someone as status-obsessed as Zoey is, or from her absorbing it as background from her generation. And, of course, "Blowjobs aren't cool!" is the lesson. Because we know what would happen if Zoey were told "Actually, we the people who control what gets shown to be cool in all major media say they are. You don't want to be the frumpy, unpopular girl who's just like your People-of-Faith family and doesn't like blowjobs, do you? (Because, you know, vampires, oral fixation, it's kind of a thing.)"

...And goddamnit, now I'm thinking about an alternating-POV book about Danny from Dreadnought and this asshole engaging in escalating levels of incredibly petty social drama bullshit with the backdrop of having amazing powers and using them only to further said petty social drama bullshit. What is wrong with me?

---

...I'm also developing a fun little alternate interpretation of events. So, we've got a secretive minority, with extremely distinctive features, who are targeted by the People of Faith, who secretly (and then not-so-secretly) control Hollywood and the music industry, who do shady real-estate deals, who participate in blood rites, and the protagonist is special among them because she is, through her matrilineal bloodline, of the Tribe.

Are House of Night's vampires literally Jewish stereotypes? Because I'm going back in and mentally inserting random Yiddish-isms into the glossy, shiny nothing we're getting about actual vampire culture so far, under the assumption that our protagonist is literally too stupid to notice, and the contrast amuses me.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

“I said, we were hoping you would have some explanation about why a fledgling vampyre that hasn’t Changed has the Mark of a mature being on her forehead.”
Without her smile and the gentle concern in her voice her words would have seemed harsh. Instead, what she said came off as worried and a little confused.

What about "I was hoping you'd know why this odd event is happening" is harsh?

“Not yet, Zoey, but I would say that already having your Mark complete is an excellent omen.”

"Your very existence is an affront to our very nature, but sure, this is a... Good omen. Yes." She says while the staff prepare the sacrifical chamber behind her.

Her touch was warm and firm. Her smile blazed with welcome. She was amazing and awe-inspiring. Actually, she was what all vampyres are, more than human—stronger, smarter, more talented.

I don't remember if this is true, but I'm getting the sense there's gonna be an undertones of Zoey being a non-fang supremisist as we go on.

“As I was telling your grandmother earlier, we have never had a fledgling come to us in such an unusual manner before—unconscious and with a completed Mark. Can you remember what happened to you, Zoey?”

"Well, you see, I was feeling in an Indian mood, so I raided my Grandma's secret herb stash and went on a 'vision quest' where my big titty goth mommy told me that I'm a special little girl."

Then Neferet did something that not only surprised me, but made me instantly like her—and begin to trust her. She walked over to Grandma and spoke slowly and carefully.

“Sylvia Redbird, I give you my solemn oath that your granddaughter is safe here. Each fledgling is paired with an adult mentor. To ensure my oath to you I will be Zoey’s mentor. And now you must entrust her to my care.”

An utter stranger showing an unusual interest in an underaged girl and insisting that they take her under their wing and be left alone with her? Clearly, she's on the level.

So, Neferet is clearly the villain. Is that even a spoiler? This is written like a barmy Harry Potter fanfic, why not have a Manipulative Dumbledore?

Strange that the divine feeling is clearly aware of this and stopping Zoey from spilling any important information, but isn't stopping her from gushing over and trusting Neferet.

but formal rituals are held twice a week right after school. The next ritual will be tomorrow.

Ah yes, this is how you know it's a YA story aimed at girls; the weird obsession with rituals. Like, I remember the second book in particular having a lot of scenes that are just 'We need carry out a basic task? TO THE RITUAL ROOM!"

I looked up from the cat to meet her green eyes and saw that she understood a lot more about freaky family issues than she was saying. It made me feel connected to her, and automatically my stress level relaxed a little. “Are there a lot of cats here?”

Most vampires usually have to employ manipulation or use the tried and true mesmerizing glare technique to get their future meals/pawns to trust them, all Neferet has to do to get Zoey to wrap around her finger is to smile and nod.

Yes, I was aware of the whole oral sex thing. I doubt if there’s a teenager alive in America today who isn’t aware that most of the adult public think we’re giving guys blow jobs like they used to give guys gum (or maybe more appropriately suckers). Okay, that’s just bullshit, and it’s always made me mad. Of course there are girls who think it’s “cool” to give guys head. Uh, they’re wrong. Those of us with functioning brains know that it is not cool to be used like that.

I didn't expect a feminist novel to have the first response to rape be to slut-shame the girl for the position she was using.

“I’m surprised they sold it to you guys,” I said absently.

Her laugh was low and a little dangerous. “They didn’t want to, but we made their arrogant headmaster an offer even he couldn’t refuse.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant, but her laugh gave me a skin-crawly feeling.

I wonder why people might be weary of vamps.

I hate to repeat myself, but vampires exploding in sunlight was invented for a film. It wasn't even really a "myth" in real life folklore, so I have no clue how they got the idea here.

The second book give the explanation for this that just makes everything so much more fucked up.

 

[Aloof Pessimism]

Zoey's Mary Sue level is off the charts and continues to rise steadily. Wow. This is straight from Bad Writing 101. I did not think I'd see this outside of crappy fanfictions.

Not quite Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way level of Mary Sue... yet. We're gonna get there.

No, it isn't a trilogy of books.

It's a twelve book series.

Oh hell. Every shitty book will look good in comparison to this once we're done. Actually I already think better of both Dreadnoughts. That is pretty terrifying considering how bad these were.

And goddamnit, now I'm thinking about an alternating-POV book about Danny from Dreadnought and this asshole engaging in escalating levels of incredibly petty social drama bullshit with the backdrop of having amazing powers and using them only to further said petty social drama bullshit.

You could have just said you want to read 10 pages of Danny Tozer slowly strangling a TERF while he rambles about his childhood. That is what Danny Tozer does. While Zoey whines Danny's grip is pathetic, his breasts not big enough, and that he will never be a woman.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Strange that the divine feeling is clearly aware of this and stopping Zoey from spilling any important information, but isn't stopping her from gushing over and trusting Neferet.

To be fair, Neferet clearly put a lot of dots into Majesty.

...And goddamnit, now I'm thinking about an alternating-POV book about Danny from Dreadnought and this asshole engaging in escalating levels of incredibly petty social drama bullshit with the backdrop of having amazing powers and using them only to further said petty social drama bullshit. What is wrong with me?

I'm reminded of a weird dream I once had where vampires were the first superheroes and mainstream humanity somehow "caught" superpowers off them.

You could have just said you want to read 10 pages of Danny Tozer slowly strangling a TERF while he rambles about his childhood. That is what Danny Tozer does. While Zoey whines Danny's grip is pathetic, his breasts not big enough, and that he will never be a woman.

Fuck you, now I feel fondly disposed towards Zoey! Although, I feel like the more likely possibility is that they're attracted to each other's awfulness, and Danny regrows his girldick so they can conceive the literary Antichrist.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Yes, two updates in one day. I am such a stud. So, what does the inside of a vampyre dorm look like?

Inside was a surprise. I’m not sure what I expected—maybe everything to be all black and creepy. But it was nice, decorated in soft blue and antique yellow, with comfy couches and clumps of puffy pillows big enough to sit on dotting the room like giant pastel M&Ms. The soft gaslight coming from several antique crystal chandeliers made the place look like a princess’s castle. On the cream-colored walls there were large oil paintings, all of them of ancient women who looked exotic and powerful. Fresh-cut flowers, mostly roses, sat in crystal vases on end tables that were cluttered with books and purses and fairly normal-looking teenage girl stuff.

Generic as hell yet vaguely discordant, apparently. All the girls proceed to stare and gawk at Zoey's literal mark of divine favour, which is, like, so embarassing, guys. Don't they know Zoey just wants to fit in? It's like teenage cliches as humble-bragging.

“Ladies, this is Zoey Redbird. Greet her and welcome her to the House of Night.”
For a second I didn’t think anyone was going to say anything, and I wanted to die of new-kid mortification. Then a girl stood up from among the middle of a group that was clustered around one of the TVs. She was a tiny blonde and darn near perfect. Actually, she reminded me of a young version of Sarah Jessica Parker (who I don’t like, by the by—she’s just so . . . so . . . annoying and unnaturally perky).

This book is like the worst teenage girl you ever met tried to adapt her 2007 blogspot page into a modern fantasy novel. Also, I'm guessing Sarah Jessica Parker is still a human in this timeline.

“Hi Zoey. Welcome to your new home.” The SJP look-alike’s smile was warm and genuine, and she was clearly making an effort to make eye contact instead of gawk at my darkened-in Mark. Instantly I felt bad for making a negative comparison about her. “I’m Aphrodite,” she said.

Aphrodite? Okay, maybe I hadn’t been too hasty in my comparison. How could anyone normal choose Aphrodite as her name? Please. Talk about delusions of grandeur. I plastered a smile on my face, though, and said a bright, “Hi Aphrodite!”

Maybe she's Greek? Or really believes in the power of love? Or maybe she was just a teenager who was told to pick a new name to celebrate becoming an immortal demigod, and so naturally was a bit extra about it? The whole new name thing seems to be a kind of meta-narrative trap. Most of the fledglings we're meant to like didn't change or their names, or else picked names that would seem boring and conservative even at a normal public high school. To an extent, this does kind of make sense. I could see a lot fledglings being too scared and confused or homesick to want to change their names right away, which is probably another reason they should hold off on giving them the option until they've been indoctrinated a bit. Still, this place has a realy dearth of Esmeralda, Warlocks, or even Ebony D'rkness Raven Dementia Ways.

This might be because anyone who actually chooses an exotic name is obviously conceited and evil, not like our heroine, of course. However, if you happen to be born with a name Zoey finds unattractive, you are also evil. You know a character is truly S-tier in the Casts' minds when they have some kind of excuse for an exotic name, like Zoey's Cherokee roots.

I would question Zoey not questioning Neferet naming herself after an Egyptian queen whose name literally meant "beautiful" but I wouldn't be surprised if Zoey thought Egypt was one of those made up places like Atlantis.

I’ll leave you now, Zoey,” Neferet said, squeezing my shoulder. “Aphrodite will take you to your room, and your new roommate can help you get ready for dinner. I’ll see you in the dining room.” She smiled her warm, mom-smile at me, and I had the ridiculously childish urge to hug her and beg her not to leave me alone with Aphrodite. “You’ll be fine,” she said, as if she could read my mind. “You’ll see, Zoeybird. All will be well,” she whispered, sounding so much like my grandma that I had to blink hard not to cry. Then she nodded a quick good-bye to Aphrodite and the other girls, and left the dorm.

Using a grandmother's nickname for someone you just met feels like over-egging it, even for a cult leader.

The door closed with a muffled, dead sound. Oh, hell . . . I just wanted to go home!

No you don't! You spent chapters and chapters ranting and raving about how you hated everything and everyone in your home! I know a lot of teenagers do that, but I'm pretty sure the Casts wanted us to take it seriously.

“Neferet, would you like me to show Zoey to her room?” Neferet hesitated, which felt really odd. Instead of answering right away she just stood there and locked eyes with Aphrodite. Then, just as quickly as the silent stare-down had started, Neferet’s face broke into a wide smile.

Fuck, she has Dominate, too. I'm having a hard time pegging Neferet's clan.

“Thank you, Aphrodite, that would be lovely. I am Zoey’s mentor, but I’m sure she would feel much more welcomed if someone her own age showed her the way to her room.”

Was that anger I saw flash through Aphrodite’s eyes? No, I must have imagined it—or at least I would have believed I’d imagined it if that weird new gut feeling of mine hadn’t told me otherwise. And I didn’t need my new intuition to clue me in that something was wrong, because Aphrodite laughed—and I recognized the sound of it.

Feeling like someone had punched me in the gut I realized that this girl—Aphrodite—had been the one I’d just watched with the guy in the hall!

Aphrodite’s laugh, followed by her perky, “Of course I’d be happy to show her around! You know I’m always glad to help you, Neferet,” was as fake and cold as Pamela Anderson’s humongously huge boobs, but Neferet just nodded in response and then turned to face me.

Aphrodite on the other hand, was apparently able to fake a warm, sincere smile just a few moments before, but now that Zoey's seen threw her facade, she's lost that ability altogether. So, Mekhet, of the Player bloodline.

Also, add Pamela Anderson to the human roster. I've been told she's a genuinely pleasant woman, so that probably makes sense.

“I’ll leave you now, Zoey,” Neferet said, squeezing my shoulder. “Aphrodite will take you to your room, and your new roommate can help you get ready for dinner. I’ll see you in the dining room.” She smiled her warm, mom-smile at me, and I had the ridiculously childish urge to hug her and beg her not to leave me alone with Aphrodite. “You’ll be fine,” she said, as if she could read my mind. “You’ll see, Zoeybird. All will be well,” she whispered, sounding so much like my grandma that I had to blink hard not to cry. Then she nodded a quick good-bye to Aphrodite and the other girls, and left the dorm.

“Come on, Zoey. The rooms are this way,” Aphrodite said. She motioned for me to come with her up the wide stairs that curved to our right. As we walked upstairs I tried to ignore the buzz of voices that instantly erupted behind us.
Neither of us spoke, and I felt so uncomfortable that I wanted to scream. Had she seen me back there in the hall? Well, I sure as hell wasn’t going to mention it. Ever. As far as I was concerned it never happened.
I cleared my throat and said, “The dorm seems nice. I mean, it’s really pretty.”

"And if that boy ever asks me to serve as a witness, I'll lie on the stand!"

“Oh. Well. That’s good to hear.”

She laughed. The sound was totally unpleasant—almost a sneer—and it crawled up the back of my neck like it had when I’d first heard it.

“It’s amazing here mostly because of me.”

I glanced at her, thinking that she must be kidding, and met her cold blue eyes.

“Yeah, you heard me right. This place is cool because I’m cool.”

Oh. My. God. What a bizarre thing for her to say.

Yes, yes it is. Like a lot of high-school writers, the Casts tend to write "mean popular girls" as being basically socially-retarded, because they're either too wrapped up in themselves or bitter to realise that charisma is a pretty important part of being popular. Of course, at lot of them also seem to think "popular" means "are hated by everyone in the school, except for the two henchgirls who flank them at all times." Aphrodite falls pretty firmly into that category.

Neither of us said anything more. The stairs led to a large hallway lined with doors. I held my breath when Aphrodite stopped before one that was painted a pretty light purple, but instead of knocking, she turned to face me. Her perfect face suddenly looked hateful and cold and definitely not so pretty.

“Okay, here’s the deal, Zoey. You have this weird Mark, so everyone’s talking about you and wondering what the fuck is up with you.” She rolled her eyes and clutched her pearls dramatically, changing her voice so that she sounded really silly and gushing. “Oooh! The new girl has a colored-in Mark! Whatever could that mean? Is she special? Does she have fabulous powers? Oh my—oh my!” She dropped her hand from her throat and narrowed her eyes at me. Her voice went as flat and mean as her gaze. “Here’s what’s what. I’m it here. Things go my way. You want to get along here, then you’d best remember that. If you don’t, you’ll be in for a world of shit.”

You'd think Aphrodite would rather get this potential new "It girl" on her side.

So, you've probably noticed that pretty much everyone in House of Night are defined by pretty much one trait. Heath was a cheery if dim jock and proto-fratboy. John Heifer was an Evil Fundamentalist. Grandma Redbird is the kind of Indian pseudo-shaman who'd probably be able to turn into a crow, if it wasn't for her sciatica. So, what's Stevie, Zoey's new roomate's, gimmick!

"Come on in!" called a perky voice with an Okie accent. Aphrodite opened the door.

"Hi y'all! Ohmygosh, come on in.” With a huge grin, my new roomie, also a blonde, rushed up like a little countrified tornado. But the instant she saw Aphrodite, her grin slid from her face and she stopped hurrying toward us.

She's... from Oklahoma. Which is kind of a strange thing to define one character around when pretty much everyone in the cast was born and raised in Oklahoma as well.

“I brought your new roommate to you.” There was nothing technically wrong with Aphrodite’s words, but her tone was hateful and she was putting on a terrible, fake Oklahoma accent.

Over her real Oklahoma accent, I assume. Yeah, Aphrodite's from there too. In fact, her dad's the mayor of Tulsa. I imagine the idea is she's exaggerating her drawl to make fun of Stevie being country, but everyone in this book acts like Oklahoma itself is some far off, third world country they've only heard about in stories.

“Stevie Rae Johnson, this is Zoey Redbird. Zoey Redbird, this is Stevie Rae Johnson. There, now ain’t we all nice and cozy like three little corns on a cob?”

I glanced at Stevie Rae. She looked like a terrified little rabbit.

“Thanks for showing me up here, Aphrodite.” I talked quickly, moving toward Aphrodite, who automatically stepped back, which put her out in the hall again. “See you around.” I closed the door on her as her look of surprise was just beginning to change to anger. Then I turned to Stevie Rae, who was still pale.

“What’s with her?” I asked.

“She’s . . . she’s . . . ,”

Even though I didn’t know her at all, I could tell that Stevie Rae was struggling with how much she should or shouldn’t say. So I decided to help her. I mean, we were going to be roommates. “She’s a bitch!” I said.

Stevie Rae’s eyes went round, and then she giggled. “She’s not very nice, that’s for sure.”

“She needs pharmaceutical help, that’s for sure,” I added, making her laugh some more.

I don't blame Stevie for laughing now, but wait till she realises Zoey's not going to stop:

"So then the fat dyke was like 'Leave him alone!' and I said 'Sure, when he learns how to stop counting at 47. You ever notice that downies have eyes like chinks?"

"No, I don't believe I have."

“I think we’re gonna get along just fine, Zoey Redbird,” she said, still smiling. “Welcome to your new home!” She stepped aside and made a sweeping arm gesture at the little room, like she was ushering me into a palace.
I looked around and blinked. Several times. The first thing I saw was the life-sized Kenny Chesney poster that hung over one of the two beds and the cowboy (cowgirl?) hat that rested on one of the bedside tables—the one that also had the old-fashioned-looking gas lamp with the base shaped like a cowboy boot. Oh, nu uh. Stevie Rae was a total Okie!

Zoey being so bemused at Stevie being an Okie makes even less sense than Aphrodite. At least she was a rich urbanite. Zoey meanwhile also grew up in some piece of shit small town or suburb.

“It’s kinda scary, isn’t it?” Stevie Rae was watching me with big, serious blue eyes that were filled with sympathetic tears. I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“I know. I cried the whole first night.”

I swallowed back my own tears and asked, “How long have you been here?”

“Three months. And, man, I was glad when they told me I was getting a roommate!”

“You knew I was coming?”

She nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah! Neferet told me day before yesterday that the Tracker had sensed you and was going to Mark you. I thought you’d be here yesterday, but then I heard that you’d had an accident and been brought to the clinic. What happened?”

How many times has Neferet had to poke her head in and say, "So, about that new roommate, her parents locked her in the basement and she died. But hey, at least you've still got the room to yourself!"

I shrugged and said, “I was looking for my grandma and I fell and hit my head.” I wasn’t getting the weird feeling that told me to keep my mouth shut, but I wasn’t sure how much I should say to Stevie Rae yet, and I was relieved when she nodded as though she understood and didn’t ask any more questions about the accident—or mention my weird colored-in Mark.

“Your parents freaked when you got Marked?”

“Totally. Didn’t yours?”

“Actually, my mama was okay with it. She said anything that got me out of Henrietta was a good thing.”

“Henrietta, Oklahoma?” I asked, glad to move to a subject that was not all about me.

“Sadly, yes.”

Henrietta is actually a real town in Oklaholma, though it's spelt "Henryetta." It's apparently known for rodeos and... a mass-murder earlier this year. I guess Stevie invited Zoey home for a visit.

Stevie Rae flopped down on the bed in front of the Kenny Chesney poster and motioned for me to sit on the one across the room from her. I did, and then felt a little jolt of surprise when I realized that I was sitting on my cool hot-pink and green Ralph Lauren comforter from home. I looked at the little oak end table and blinked. There was my annoying, ugly alarm clock, nerdy glasses for when I’m sick of wearing my contacts, and the picture of Grandma and me from last summer. And in the bookshelves behind the computer on my side of the room I saw my Gossip Girls and Bubbles series books (along with some of my other favorites, including Bram Stoker’s Dracula—which was more than a little ironic)

Zoey had good taste in hate-literature. We'll actually be hearing more about Dracula later on.

some CDs, my laptop, and—oh my dear sweet lord—my Monsters Inc. figurines. How incredibly embarrassing. My backpack was sitting on the floor next to my bed.

See, the Casts can't bear to actually make Zoey seem like a dork, so they just pretend innocuous shit like that is embarrassing.

“Your grandma brought your stuff up here. She’s really nice,” Stevie Rae said.

“She’s more than nice. She’s brave as hell to have faced my mom and her stupid husband to get this stuff for me. I can only imagine the overly dramatic scene my mom caused.” I sighed and then shook my head.

"Hi daughter. I have kidnapped your child, and am now about to ransack her room to furnish her quarters at the cult-compound. Also, I still hate you for marrying a filthy paleface."

Here's a thought, if John is such a dick and hates Sylvia, why did she let her through the door? Did she threaten to tell her domitor on them?

“Yeah, I guess I’m lucky. At least my mama was cool about all of this,” Stevie Rae pointed to the outline of the crescent moon on her forehead. “Even if my daddy lost every bit of his mind, me being his only ‘baby girl’ and all.” She shrugged and then giggled. “My three brothers thought it was awesome and wanted to know if I could help them get vampyre chicks.” She rolled her eyes. “Stupid boys.”
“Stupid boys,” I echoed and smiled at her. If she thought boys were stupid she and I would get along fine.

Yes, "girls rule, boys drool" definitely a strong basis for a friendship.

“Mostly now I’m okay with all of this. I mean, the classes are weird but I like them—especially the Tae Kwan Do class. I kinda like to kick butt.” She grinned mischievously, like a little blonde elf. “I like the uniforms, which totally shocked me at first. I mean, would anyone expect to like school uniforms? But we can add stuff to them and make them unique, so they don’t look like typical stuck-up, boring school uniforms. And there are some seriously hot guys here—even if boys are stupid.” Her eyes sparkled. “Mostly I’m just so darn glad to be out of Henrietta that I don’t mind all the other stuff, even if Tulsa is kinda scary because it’s so big.”

Because if there's one thing that's not "stuck-up" it's designer clothes. What exactly does Stevie mean by "adding stuff"? Does she just mean they're allowed to wear jewellery?

“Tulsa isn’t scary,” I said automatically. Unlike too many kids from our suburb of Broken Arrow, I actually knew my way around Tulsa, thanks to what Grandma liked to call “field-tripping” with her. “You just have to know where to go. There’s a great bead gallery where you can make your own jewelry downtown on Brady Street, and next door to that is Lola’s at the Bowery—she has the best desserts in town. Cherry Street is cool, too. We’re not far from there now. Actually, we’re right by the awesome Philbrook Museum and Utica Square. There’s some excellent shopping there and—”

Kids from the suburbs never go into the town for the day! I love how we're trying to make Zoey seem like a woman of the world because she's... been to a city she lives next to.

I suddenly realized what I was saying. Did vampyre kids get to mingle with regular kids? I searched my memory. No. I’d never seen kids with crescent moon outlines hanging around the Philbrook or Utica’s Gap or Banana Republic or Starbucks. I’d never seen them at the movies. Hell! I’d never even seen a vampyre kid before today. So would they keep us locked up here for four years? Feeling a little short of breath and claustrophobic I asked, “Do we ever get out of here?”

Complete isolation from the outside world, always a good sign.

“Yeah, but there are all sorts of rules you have to follow.”

“Rules? Like what?”

“Well, you can’t wear any part of the school uniform—” She broke off suddenly. “Shoot! That reminds me. We have to hurry. Dinner is in a few minutes and you need to change.” She jumped up and started to rummage through the closet that was on my side of the room, chattering at me from over her shoulder the whole time. “Neferet had some clothes delivered here last night. Don’t worry about the sizes not being right. Somehow they always know what size we’ll be before they actually see us—it’s kinda freaky how the adult vamps know way more than they should. Anyway, don’t be scared. I was serious before when I said the uniforms aren’t as awful as you’d think they’d be. You really can add your own stuff to them—like me.”

Oh, so the school just wants people to think they lock up fledgelings for years at a time. Smart bunch.

I looked at her. I mean, really looked at her. She was wearing a pair of honest-to-God Roper jeans. You know, the kind those agkids wear that are way too tight and have no back pockets. How anyone could think no back pockets and tightness was cute, I’d honestly never understand. Stevie Rae was totally skinny, and the jeans even made her butt look wide. I knew before I looked at the girl’s feet what she’d be wearing—cowboy boots. I glanced down and sighed. Yep. Brown leather, flat-heeled, pointy-tipped cowboy boots. Tucked into her countrified jeans was a black, long-sleeved cotton blouse that had the expensive look of something you’d find at Saks or Neiman Marcus, versus the cheaper see-through shirts that overpriced Abercrombie tries to make us believe aren’t slutty. When she glanced over at me I saw that she had double-pierced ears with little silver hoops in them. She turned and held out in one hand a black blouse like the one she had on, and a pullover sweater in another, and I decided that even though the country look wasn’t for me she was kinda cute with her mixture of hayseed and chic.

So, the uniform is... no uniform.

he flickering light from the cowboy-boot lamp caught on a streak of silver embroidery that was on the breast of the sweater she was holding out. I got up and took the two shirts, holding the sweater up so I could see the front of it better. The silver embroidery was in the shape of a spiral that glittered around and around in a delicate circle that would rest over my heart.

“It’s our sign,” Stevie Rae said.

“Our sign?”

“Yeah, each class—here they call them third formers, fourth formers, fifth formers, and sixth formers—has their own sign. We’re third formers, so our sign is the silver labyrinth of the Goddess Nyx.”

“What does it mean?” I asked, more to myself than to her as I traced my finger around the sliver circles.

“It stands for our new beginning as we start walking the Path of Night and learn the ways of the Goddess and the possibilities of our new life.”

As far as I know, Nyx has never been associated with labyrinths. That'd be Ariadne, love interest of Theseus and later wife of the god Dionysus. In a lot of ways, Nyx is kind of a boring choice for a vampire goddess. She doesn't really have any myths or symbols to her name, and evidence suggests she wasn't even widely worshiped in Greece, though she did have some oracles. Mostly, she existed to be the mother of a fuckton of minor deities, and to scare the shit out of Zeus this one time. A better choice might've been Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, who has a lot more extant lore.

Also, notice we're using a bunch of posh boarding school terminology that even Harry Potter didn't bother with.

I looked up at her, surprised that she suddenly sounded so serious. She grinned a little shyly at me and shrugged her shoulders. “It one of the first things you learn in Vampyre Sociology 101. That’s the class Neferet teaches, and it sure beats the heck outta the boring classes I was taking at Henrietta High, home of the fighting hens. Ugh. Fighting hens! What kind of a mascot is that?”

They were going to call them something else, but the local People of Faith complained.

“Anyway, I heard Neferet is your mentor, which is really lucky. She hardly takes on any new kids, and besides being High Priestess, she’s way the coolest teacher here.”

What she didn’t say was that I’m not just lucky, I’m “special” with my weird colored-in Mark. Which reminded me . . .

“Stevie Rae, why haven’t you asked me about my Mark? I mean, I appreciate you not bombarding me with a hundred questions, but all the way up here everyone who saw me stared at my Mark. Aphrodite mentioned it almost the second we were alone. You haven’t even really looked at it. Why?”

Then she did finally look at my forehead before she shrugged and met my eyes again. “You’re my roommate. I figured you’d tell me what was up with it when you were ready.

"Like all good people, I always know exactly what Zoey Redbird wants at all times, without asking."

One thing growing up in a small town like Henrietta taught me is that it’s best to mind your own business if you want someone to stay your friend. Well, we’re gonna be rooming together for four years . . .” She paused and in the gap between words sat the big, ugly unsaid truth that we’d be roommates for four years only if both of us survived the Change. Stevie Rae swallowed hard and finished in a rush, “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I want us to be friends.”

People in small-towns, well known for not being nosy.

“Yea for that!” I swear she looked like a wriggly puppy again. “But come on! Hurry—we don’t want to be late.”

Zoey seems to equate "true friend" to "loyal pet."

She gave me a shove toward a door that sat between the two closets before she hurried over to a makeup mirror on her computer desk and started brushing at her short hair. I ducked inside to find a tiny bathroom, and quickly pulled off my BA Tigers T-shirt and put on the cotton blouse and over it the silk knit sweater that was a deep, pretty shade of purple with little black plaid lines going through it. I was just getting ready to go back into the room to grab my backpack so I could try to fix my face and hair with the makeup and stuff I’d brought, when I glanced in the mirror over the sink. My face was still white, but it had lost the scary, unhealthy paleness it had earlier. My hair looked insane, all wild and uncombed, and I could faintly see the slim line of dark stitches just above my left temple. But it was the sapphire-colored Mark that caught my eyes. While I stared at it, entranced by its exotic beauty, the bathroom light caught the silver labyrinth embroidered over my heart. I decided that the two symbols somehow matched, even though they were different shapes . . . different colors . . .

I feel like telling you all that PC Cast looks like this:

 

[IridiumDragon06]

You could have just said you want to read 10 pages of Danny Tozer slowly strangling a TERF while he rambles about his childhood. That is what Danny Tozer does. While Zoey whines Danny's grip is pathetic, his breasts not big enough, and that he will never be a woman.

That's why I'd want the POV-swapping, as the force of Main-Characterness kept whiplashing between the two, as Danny's Orb of Tit-Inciting clashes with the meddling of Can't Believe She's Not Lilith!, and we'd get a back and forth of "Nuh-uh! Everything in the universe bends to make me special, not you!"

And so we've met our Draco and our Ron-a-likes I assume. I kind of feel like I want more of Stevie Ray, just because Zoey's tide of narrator venom stems slightly in her presence. But only slightly. Like, what is the target audience for which "the expensive look of something you’d find at Saks or Neiman Marcus, as opposed to overpriced Abercrombie" is an evocative description? I haven't read a lot of stuff by or targeted at tween or teen girls, but that just sounds alien to me. Like, I at least am aware of who Ready Player One is trying to pander to, it just does a shit job of it. Do...people really like this? Does anyone?

I also absolutely want to hear Zoey befriend Danny based on their respective utterly superficial elements, only for the conversation to turn violent when Zoey passes judgement on Danny's chosen cape-colors.

Is there a reason that the classes start at 3rd form, I wonder? What are 1st and 2nd form?

Actually, how do yearly classes work when changes don't happen on a school-year schedule? If you change in the middle of the school year, do you just get thrown in with no background and peers that have been studying for months, and need to somehow catch up? If you change over summer, do you just chillax for a few weeks or months? How variable are rates of change in a population? Could you get the school be overwhelmed by a dozen new prospective vampires, or might a pogrom wipe out an entire potential class?

And in terms of scholastics, we've got tae kwan do and Vampire Sociology, and a college-y denotation. I feel like martial arts class is interesting, knowing that some other student got their legs broken and this is apparently a pretty routine thing, and also that all of the students are apparently at most two small steps from being blood-hungry monsters. (Then again, it might just be Zoey and Aphrodite, and the other vampires might have their collective shit together; I wouldn't be terribly surprised if that was what ended up actually being shown.)

I'd make a snide comment about the sociology course, but, I mean, this is an exclusive school, of course its social studies classes are propaganda for the political agenda of those who control the school, with not even a pretense at objectivity or scholarship. That's what schools are in this day and age, sadly. Hell, I'd bet that the classes here end up being less stupid than what's happening at mundane colleges right now.

 

[M3xus]

That picture of PC Cast explains more than it should.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Relieved, I unclenched my jaws. Most of the kids were already eating, so the line was short, and as Stevie Rae and I got up to the food I felt my mouth start to water. Spaghetti! I sniffed deeply: with garlic!

“That whole vampyres can’t stand garlic thing is total bullshit—pardon my French,” Stevie Rae was saying under her breath to me as we loaded up our plates.
That's why I'd want the POV-swapping, as the force of Main-Characterness kept whiplashing between the two, as Danny's Orb of Tit-Inciting clashes with the meddling of Can't Believe She's Not Lilith!, and we'd get a back and forth of "Nuh-uh! Everything in the universe bends to make me special, not you!"

I'm kind of surprised now I think about it that Lilith doesn't get a look in these books. I mean, I'm also relieved because that's who my vampires are literally descended from. I'm guessing that they didn't want to give any credence to Abrahamic cosmology.

Is there a reason that the classes start at 3rd form, I wonder? What are 1st and 2nd form?

I think 1st and 2nd form are where they stick the comparitively rare vampires who start transitioning between twelve and fourteen. Apparently those do exist, and God I pity them.

Anyway, let's cover another chapter while I'm here.

Okay, the cafeteria was cool—oops, I mean “dining hall,” as the silver plaque outside the entrance proclaimed. It was nothing at all like SIHS’s freezing cold monstrous cafeteria where the acoustics were so bad that even though I sat right next to Kayla I couldn’t hear what she was babbling at me half the time.

God, imagine being this bitch's "best friend" for years.

This room was warm and friendly. The walls were made of the same weird mixture of jutting bricks and black rock as the exterior of the building and the room was filled with heavy wooden picnic tables that had matching benches with padded seats and backs. Each table sat about six kids and radiated out from a large, unoccupied table situated at the center of the room that was practically overflowing with fruit and cheese and meat, and a crystal goblet that was filled with something that looked suspiciously like red wine. (Huh? Wine at school? What?) The ceiling was low and the rear wall was made up of windows with a glass door in the center. Heavy burgundy velvet drapes were pulled open so that I could see outside to a beautiful little courtyard with stone benches, winding paths, and ornamental bushes and flowers. In the middle of the courtyard was a marble fountain with water spouting from the top of something that looked an awful lot like a pineapple. It was very pretty, especially lit up by the moonlight and the occasional antique gaslight.

It's interesting to compare the luxury porn in this to Harry Potter. Rowling also loved to showcase the comforts and grandeur of Hogwarts: the four-poster beds, the good, hearty food, the magnificent, yet welcoming scenery of the castle. It's definitely a big part of the books' appeal. Yet, it was always clear the core of the whole Hogwarts fantasy was, you know, magic, and even more importantly, the simple joy of being around people who loved you. With the Casts, meanwhile, I get the impression they're way more invested in pretending they're at a stuck-up boarding school than the vampire shit, let alone any plebian shit like love or friendship.

Most of the tables were already filled with eating, talking kids who glanced up with obvious curiosity when Stevie Rae and I entered the room. I took a deep breath and held my head high. Might as well give them a clear view of the Mark they all seemed so obsessed with. Stevie Rae led me to the side of the room that had the typical cafeteria servers handing out food from behind buffet-style glass thingies.

“What’s the table in the middle of the room for?” I asked as we walked.

“It’s the symbolic offering to the Goddess Nyx. There’s always a place set at that table for her. It seems kinda weird at first, but pretty soon it won’t seem so weird and it’ll feel right to you.”

I imagine the Jewish kids grasp the concept pretty easily. Of course, they're probably also a bit conflicted about being forced to convert to a new religion, but you know, if they'd rather die on the streets...

Actually, it didn’t seem that weird to me. In a way, it made sense. The Goddess was so alive here. Her Mark was everywhere. Her statue stood proudly in front of her Temple. I was also starting to notice all over the school little pictures and figurines that represented her. Her High Priestess was my mentor and, I had to admit to myself, I already felt connected to Nyx. With an effort, I stopped myself from touching the Mark on my forehead. Instead I grabbed a tray and moved behind Stevie Rae in line.

I get this weird vibe that the Casts are trying to convert me to a religion that doesn't exist.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered to me. “The food’s real good. They don’t make you drink blood or eat raw meat or anything like that.”

We wouldn't our vampire main character to have to drink blood!

Relieved, I unclenched my jaws. Most of the kids were already eating, so the line was short, and as Stevie Rae and I got up to the food I felt my mouth start to water. Spaghetti! I sniffed deeply: with garlic!
“That whole vampyres can’t stand garlic thing is total bullshit—pardon my French,” Stevie Rae was saying under her breath to me as we loaded up our plates.

In real life, the idea that garlic repels vampires thing probably came from the fact that allicin, the active ingredient in garlic, has antimicrobial properties, and vampires tend to be associated with plague and disease. Same with salt, and arguably even silver. What I want to know is, what mad lad in Zoey's universe tried to ward off a vampire with fucking garlic, and how did he live to tell the tale?

Actually, that reminds me, when was the last time any of you saw a serious vampire story where garlic was treated as a proper bane instead of being laughed off? The only place I tend to see it be used like that in modern stories are stuff aimed at little kids that doesn't want to bring up religion.

“Okay, what about that whole vampyres have to drink blood thing?” I whispered back.

“Not,” she said softly.

“Not?”

“Not bullshit.”

Great. Wonderful. Fantastic. Just exactly what I wanted to hear—not.

Given vampires are the dominant class of this world, you'd think hematophagia would be a common affectation. I could definitely see people like Zoey pretending to appreciate the taste of blood so they looked sophisticated.

Trying not to think about blood and whatnot I got a glass of tea with Stevie Rae, and then followed her to a table where two other kids were already talking animatedly while they ate. Of course the conversation totally stopped when I joined them, which didn’t seem to faze Stevie Rae at all. As I slid into the booth opposite her she made introductions in her Okie twang.

So, how is Zoey supposed to talk? Does she always speak like a Red Indian from Disney's Peter-Pan?

“Hey, y’all. Meet my new roommate, Zoey Redbird. Zoey, this is Erin Bates,” she pointed to the ridiculously pretty blonde sitting on my side of the table. (Well, hell—how many pretty blondes could one school have? Isn’t there some kind of limit?) Still in her matter-of-fact Okie voice, she went on, making little air quotes for emphasis. “Erin is ‘the pretty one.’ She’s also funny and smart and has more shoes than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Erin pulled her blue eyes away from staring at my Mark long enough to say a quick “Hi.”

“And this is the token guy in our group, Damien Maslin. But he’s gay, so I don’t really think he counts as a guy.”

Instead of getting pissed at Stevie Rae, Damien looked serene and unruffled. “Actually, since I’m gay I think I should count for two guys instead of just one. I mean, in me you get the male point of view and you don’t have to worry about me wanting to touch your boobies.”

I have never seen a character explain their role in relation to the main character they've just met in such blunt terms.

He had a smooth face that was totally zit free, and dark brown hair and eyes that reminded me of a baby deer. Actually, he was cute. Not in the overly girly way so many teenage guys are when they decide to come out and tell everyone what everyone already knew (well, everyone except their typically clueless and/or in-denial parents). Damien wasn’t a swishy girly-guy; he was just a cute kid with a likable smile. He was also noticeably trying not to stare at my Mark, which I appreciated.

Again, Zoey's basically incapable of complimenting anyone without slinging an insult at some third-party. Is it a vampire OCD thing, like counting poppy-seeds? Also, it's interesting to see how standards have shifted over the years. While House of Night was never a woke darling--I'm sure you can guess a few reasons why--back then, having a character who was openly gay without being a campy stereotype would probably have been considered relatively progressive. These days, a character like Damien would probably be called "assimilationist." Also, he should be a black Muslim who doesn't need to explain why his "unapologetic queerness" doesn't contradict with him practicing Islam.

Tangentially, Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition was probably a mistake.

Of course, this all assumes Damien isn't a stereotypical gay best friend, but... well, you can judge for yourself.

“And we’re desperately glad you finally got here. Stevie Ray’s been driving everyone crazy wondering what you’d be like, when you’d get here—”

“If you’d be one of those freaky kids who smell bad and think being a vampyre means seeing who can be the biggest loser,” Erin interrupted.

“Or wondering if you’d be one of them,” Damien said, cutting his eyes at a table to our left.

I followed his gaze and felt a zap of nerves when I recognized who he was talking about. “You mean Aphrodite?”

“Yeah,” Damien said. “And her stuck-up flock of sycophants.”

Huh? I blinked at him.

Stevie Rae sighed. “You’ll get used to Damien’s vocabulary obsession. Thankfully, this isn’t a new word so some of us actually know what he’s talking about without having to beg him for a translation. Again. Sycophant—a servile flatterer,” she twanged proudly like she was giving an answer in English class.

I remember this same running joke from a Christian kids movie Brad Jones once reviewed. Here, I think it's mainly here to show how much contempt P.C Cast has for her readers.

Incredibly relieved that none of them liked Aphrodite, I was just getting ready to ask for more of an explanation when a girl rushed up and, with a big huff, slid herself and her tray into the booth beside Stevie Rae. She was the color of cappuccino (the kind you get from real coffee shops and not the nasty, too-sweet stuff you get from Quick Trip) and all curvy with pouty lips and high cheekbones that made her look like an African princess. She also had some seriously good hair. It was thick and fell in dark, glossy waves around her shoulders. Her eyes were so black they looked like they didn’t have any pupils.

There's this joke in white writing circles that people who describe non-white characters using food terms (almond shaped eyes, mocha skin, that kind of thing) want to eat black people. Well, I think in the Casts' case, they're probably right. In fact, I think most of progressive book Twitter is actually a long, amnesiac reaction to these books specifically.

“Okay, please! Just please. Did nobody,” she stared pointedly at Erin, “think to bother to wake me the hell up and tell me that we were going to dinner?”

“I do believe I’m your roommate, not your mamma,” Erin said lazily.

“Do not make me cut that Jessica Simpson look-alike blond hair of yours off in the middle of the night,” the African princess said.

Stop calling her that! It would actually be marginally less awkward and vaguely racist if you just called her the n-word. Or, and this might come as a shock, "the black girl"!

“Actually, the consuetudinary way to phrase that would be ‘Do not make me cut that Jessica Simpson look-alike blond hair of yours off in the middle of the day.’ Technically day is night for us and so night would be day. Time is reversed here.”
The black girl narrowed her eyes at him. “Damien, you are getting on my damn last nerve what that vocab shit.”
“Shaunee,” Stevie Rae broke in hastily. “My roommate finally got here. This is Zoey Redbird. Zoey, this is Erin’s roommate, Shaunee Cole.”

Okay, the Casts took my advice, but then proceeded to call their one black character "Shaunee Cole" and have one of her first lines is expressing confusion and disgust at big words. Smooth.

Shaunee proceeds to ask about Zoey's filled in Mark.

Well, I’m still a fledgling. I don’t think I’m any different than the rest of you.” Then I blurted something that I’d been considering while everyone else had been talking. I mean, I knew that I was going to have to answer this question eventually. I’m not stupid—confused, maybe, but not stupid—and my gut told me I needed to say something besides the real story about my out-of-body experience with Nyx. “I don’t actually know for sure why my Mark is filled in. It wasn’t that way when the Tracker first Marked me. But later that day I had an accident. I fell and hit my head. When I woke up the Mark was like it is now. I’ve been thinking about it, and all I can come up with is that it must have happened as some kind of reaction to my accident. I was unconscious and I lost a lot of blood. Maybe that did something to speed up the darkening-in process. That’s my guess, anyway.”

Girls like Zoey don't actually want to blend into the crowd, they want to be known for stuff they think reflects well on them, which I think having an unusually developed elite signifier counts as. Also, if Nyx didn't want Zoey telling anyone about her vision, why grant it to her in the first place? It's not like it contained any useful, actionable information.

Also, yes, Zoey, that makes total sense, losing a lot of blood made your skin darker.

“Huh,” Shaunee huffed. “I was hoping it’d be somethin’ more interesting. Something good and gossipy.”

“Sorry . . . ,” I muttered.

“Careful, Twin,” Erin said to Shaunee, jerking her head at the Dark Daughters. “You’re starting to sound like you should sit over at that table.”

Shaunee’s face twisted. “I wouldn’t be caught undead with those bitches.”

“You’re confusing the crap outta Zoey,” Stevie Rae said.

Damien gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll explain, proving once again how valuable I am to this group, penis or no penis.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t use the P-word,” Stevie Rae said. “Especially when I’m trying to eat.”

"Talk about something less gross, like amholes." Also, why are they making undead jokes when all of them still have heartbeats?

“I like it,” Erin chimed in. “If everyone called things what they are we’d all be a lot less confused. For instance, you know when I have to go to the bathroom I state the obvious—I have urine that needs to come out of my urethra. Simple. Easy. Clear.”

“Disgusting. Gross. Crude,” Stevie Rae said.

“I’m with you, Twin,” Shaunee said. “I mean, if we talked plainly about things like urination and menstruation and such, life would be much simpler.”

Do vampires menstruate? If so, does that mean they can have kids?

So, about the "twin" thing. As we've discussed, every character in House of Night is defined by one singular trait. Damien has "gay, but totally not swishy, guys!" and both Zoey and Aphrodite have "evil bitch" even though we're only supposed to dislike one of them. So, what do Shaunee and Erin have? Well, in 2007, it was generally considered bad form to define black characters completely by their race (as opposed to today, where that's mandatory, especially if they were a redhaired white person in the source material) so she Shaunee and Erin are... "twins."

I'll let Damien explain:

“Okay. Enough with the menstruation talk while we’re eating spaghetti.” Damien held up a hand like he could physically stop the conversation. “I may be gay, but there’s only so much even I can handle.” He leaned toward me and launched into his explanation. “First, Shaunee and Erin call each other Twin because even though they are clearly not related—Erin being an extremely white girl from Tulsa, and Shaunee being of Jamaican descent and a lovely mocha color from Connecticut—”

“Thank you for appreciating my blackness,” Shaunee said.

“Don’t mention it,” Damien said, and then continued smoothly with his explanation. “Even though they aren’t related by blood they are freakishly alike.”

“It’s like they were separated at birth or something,” Stevie Rae said.

That's right, Shaunee and Erin like to pretend they're twin sisters. It's a gimmick that's somehow both baroque and paper-thin. I just want to know, if Erin is Shaunee's sister from another mother, does she get n-word privileges.

So, what makes Shaunee and Erin such kin?

At the same moment Erin and Shaunee grinned at each other and shrugged. It was then that I noticed they were wearing the same outfit—dark jeans jackets with beautiful golden wings embroidered on the breast pockets, black T-shirts, and low-riding black slacks. They even had on the same earrings—huge gold hoops.
“We have the same shoe size,” Erin said, sticking out her foot so we could see that she was wearing pointy-toed black leather stiletto boots.
“And what’s a little melanin difference when a truly soul-deep love of shoes is involved?” Lifting up her foot Shaunee showed off another great pair of boots—only these were smooth black leather with sharp silver buckles across the ankles.

Shoe-size. Amazing.

“Next!” Damien cut in, rolling his eyes. “The Dark Daughters. The short version is that they’re a group made up of mostly upperclassmen who say that they are in charge of school spirit and such.”

“No, the short version is that they’re hags from hell,” Shaunee said.

“That’s exactly what I said, Twin,” Erin laughed.

“You two aren’t helping,” Damien told them. “Now, where was I?”

“School spirit and such,” I prompted.

“That’s right. Yeah, they’re supposed to be this great, pro-school, pro-vamp organization. Also, it is assumed that their leader is being groomed to be a High Priestess, so she’s supposed to be the heart, mind, and spirit of the school—as well as a future leader in vamp society, et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah. Think National Merit Scholar in charge of the Honor Society mixed with cheerleaders and band fags.”

Okay, I'm curious, what does "High Priestess" actually mean? Is Neferet just the headmistress, or is the Vampire Pope hanging out in a school in fucking Oklahoma of all places?

“But what the Dark Daughters really are is a group of stuck-up bitches who get off on lording power over everyone else. They want everyone to follow them, to conform to their freaky ideas of what it means to become a vamp. Most of all, they hate humans, and if you don’t feel the same they don’t want shit to do with you.”

I'm kind of scared to find out how someone could hate humans more than Zoey. Must be some real Sabbat level shit.

“Hello, Zoey. Nice to see you again so soon.”

I didn’t have any trouble recognizing her voice this time. I decided it was like honey—slick and too darn sweet. Everyone at the table jumped, including me. She was wearing a sweater like mine, except that over her heart was embroidered the silver silhouette of three goddess-like women, one of them holding what looked like a pair of scissors. She had on a very short pleated black skirt, black tights that had silver sparkles in them, and knee-high black boots. Two girls were standing behind her, dressed in much the same way. One was black, with impossibly long hair (must be a really good weave), and the other was yet another blonde (who, on closer inspection of her brows, was probably, I decided, as much a natural blonde as I am).

See, told you, Aphrodite has two girl-minions. I wonder if they're in the union. Also, Zoey clearly has level-2 Auspex, but only for insult-fodder.

Hello, Aphrodite,” I said when everyone else seemed too shocked to speak.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said insincerely.
“You’re not. We were just discussing the trash that needs to be taken out tonight,” Erin said with a big, fake smile.
“Well, you would certainly know about that,” she said with a sneer, and then purposefully turned her back on Erin, who was curling her fists and looking as if she might leap over the table at Aphrodite. “Zoey, I should have said
something to you earlier, but I guess it just slipped my mind. I want to issue an invitation for you to join the Dark Daughters in our own private Full Moon Ritual tomorrow night. I know it’s unusual for someone who hasn’t been here long to take part in a ritual so soon, but your Mark has clearly shown that you’re, well, different than the average fledgling.” She looked down her perfect nose at Stevie Rae. “I’ve already mentioned it to Neferet, and she agrees that it would be good for you to join us. I’ll give you the details later, when you’re not so busy with . . . uh . . . trash.” She gave the rest of the table her tight-lipped, sarcastic smile, flipped her long hair, and she and her entourage flitted off.

“Hag bitches from hell,” Shaunee and Erin said together.

Really? Zoey could say worse than that in her sleep.

“I keep thinking that hubris is eventually going to bring Aphrodite down,” Damien said.

“Hubris,” Stevie Rae explained, “having godlike arrogance.”

“I actually know that one,” I said, still staring after Aphrodite and her mob. “We just finished reading Medea in English class. It’s what brought Jason down.”

I mean, he was a Greek hero. What else was going to bring him down?

Just be careful, Zoey. The Dark Daughters, and especially Aphrodite, can seem almost okay at times, and that’s when they’re most dangerous.”

I shook my head. “Oh, nu uh. I’m not going to their full moon thing.”

“I think you have to,” Damien said softly.

“Neferet okayed it,” Stevie Rae said as Erin and Shaunee nodded in agreement. “That means she’ll expect you to go. You can’t tell your mentor no.”

“Especially when your mentor is Neferet, High Priestess of Nyx,” Damien said.

“Can’t I just say that I’m not ready for . . . for . . . whatever it is they want me to do, and ask Neferet if I can be—I dunno, what would you call it—excused from their full moon thingie this time?”

“Well, you could, but then Neferet would tell the Dark Daughters and they’d think that you’re scared of them.”

I thought about the major crap that had already passed between Aphrodite and me in such a short time. “Uh, Stevie Rae, I might already be scared of them.”

“Don’t ever let them know.” Stevie Rae looked down at her plate, trying to hide her embarrassment. “That’s worse than standing up to them.”

I feel like telling you we're 30% of the way into this thing, and this is our main conflict: whether Zoey will go to a youth-group meeting.

Honey,” Damien said, patting Stevie Rae’s hand, “stop beating yourself up about that.”

Stevie Rae gave Damien a sweet, thank-you smile. Then she said to me, “Just go. Be strong and go. They won’t do anything too awful at the ritual. It’s here on campus; they wouldn’t dare.”

“Yeah, they do all their bad bullshit away from here, where it’s harder for the vamps to catch them,” Shaunee said. “Around here they pretend to be all sickeningly sweet so no one knows what they’re really like.”

“No one except us,” Erin said, sweeping out her hand so that she included not just our little group, but everyone else in the room, too.

Which is why the first thing Aphrodite did when alone with a new student, who clearly enjoyed Neferet's favour, was tell her she was a big bitch and would fuck her up if she crossed her. That seems like a person who's good at maintaining an affable facade.

For Shaunee's benefit, "affable" means--

“I don’t know, y’all, maybe Zoey will actually get along with some of them okay,” Stevie Rae said without any touch of sarcasm or jealousy.
I shook my head. “Nope. I won’t get along with them. I don’t like their kind—the kind of people who try to control others and make them look bad just to feel better about themselves. And I don’t want to go to their Full Moon Ritual!” I said firmly, thinking about my stepfather and his buddies, and how ironic it was that they seemed to have so much in common with a group of teenagers who called themselves the daughters of a goddess.

...Do I even need to comment on this? Changing the subject, Zoey asks to have the school symbols explained to her:

“She means the three Fates,” Damien interjected, beating Shaunee to whatever she was going to add. “The three Fates are children of Nyx. The sixth formers all wear the emblem of the Fates, with Atropos holding scissors to symbolize the end of school.”

“And for some of us, the end of life,” Erin added gloomily.

That shut everyone up. When I couldn’t stand the uncomfortable silence anymore I cleared my throat and said, “So what about Erin and Shaunee’s wings?”

“The wings of Eros, who is the child of Nyx’s seed—”

“The love god,” Shaunee said, adding a seated gyration of her hips.

Okay, so, in most popular accounts, Eros (or Cupid, to his Roman name) is the son of Aphrodite and Ares, though I think Plato makes an argument for him being the son of Aphrodite's otherwise-perpetually-cucked husband Hephaestus. However, older cosmologies (such as the one described by Hesiod) do name him as a primordial god, and yes, some of those genealogies do name him as a child of Nyx. Of course, sometimes Nyx is his son instead, and also his wife, because Greek mythology. In general, expect the Casts to go with the version of any myth that most kisses Nyx's arse. What I want to know is whether all these associated gods actually exist, of it's basically Goth, gender-flipped Christian monotheism.

Damien frowned at her and kept talking. “The golden wings of Eros are the fourth formers’ symbol.”

“ ’Cause we’re the love class,” Erin sang, raising her arms over her head and shimmying her hips.

Notice that Shaunee gyrates her hips, but Erin shimmies. Is this human biodiversity?

“Nyx’s golden chariot pulling a trail of stars,” Damien said.
“I think it’s the prettiest of the four symbols,” Stevie Rae said. “Those stars sparkle like crazy.”
“The chariot shows that we continue on Nyx’s journey. The stars represent the magic of the two years that have already passed.”

No, as far as I know, Nyx doesn't have a chariot, probably because she's too busy literally being nighttime. They probably nicked the thing from Selene, Titan goddess of the Moon.

“Damien, you are a good little student,” Erin said.
“I told you we should have gotten him to help us study for the human mythology test,” Shaunee said.

I assume that means the mythology they didn't bother stealing from humans.

We paused while a sleek, silver-gray cat chased a smaller, harassed-looking tabby across the hall in front of us.

“Beelzebub! Leave Cammy alone! Damien is going to rip your fur out!”

Stevie Rae made a grab for the gray cat and missed, but he did stop chasing the tabby and instead streaked back down the hall the way we had just come. Stevie Rae was frowning after him.

“Shaunee and Erin need to teach that cat of theirs some manners; he’s always up to something.” She glanced at me as we left the building and walked out into the soft, pre-dawn darkness. “That cute little Cameron is Damien’s cat. Beelzebub belongs to Erin and Shaunee; he chose both of them—together. Yep. It’s as strange as it sounds, but after a little while you’ll be like the rest of us and start thinking that they must really be twins.”

The Casts seem particularly desperate to convince us about the twin thing. It isn't working.

“And I really like Damien.”

“Damien’s sweet, and really smart. I just feel bad for him sometimes, though.”

“How come?”

“Well, he had a roommate when he first got here about six months ago, but as soon as the guy found out Damien was gay—hello, it’s not like the boy tries to hide it—he complained to Neferet and said he wasn’t going to room with a fag.”

I grimaced. I can’t stand homophobes. “And Neferet actually put up with that attitude?”

“No, she made it clear that the kid—oh, he changed his name to Thor after he got here”—she shook her head and rolled her eyes—“doesn’t that just figure? Anyway, Neferet let it be known that Thor was way out of line, and she gave Damien the option of moving into another room by himself or staying with Thor. Damien chose to move. I mean, wouldn’t you?”

Man, remember when people gave a shit about homophobia?

I nodded. “Yep. No way would I room with Thor the Homophobe.”

“That’s what we all think, too. So Damien has been in a room by himself since then.”

Oh, no, he gets a room to himself.

“Aren’t there any other gay kids here?”

Gays can only room with gays, it is the law.

Stevie Rae shrugged. “There’re a few girls who are lesbians and totally out, but even though a couple of them are cool and hang with the rest of us they mostly stick together. They’re way into the religious aspect of Goddess worship and spend most of their time in Nyx’s Temple. And, of course, there are the moronic party girls who think it’s cool to make out with each other, but usually only if some cute guys are watching.”

Of course the lesbian students are all serious neo-pagans. You think Graywytch went here?

“What about gay guys?”

Stevie sighed. “There are a few besides Damien, but they’re mostly too weird and girly for him. I feel bad for him. I think he gets pretty lonely. His parents don’t write or anything.”

“The whole vampyre thing freaked them out?”

“No, they didn’t really care about that. Actually, don’t say anything to Damien because it hurts his feelings, but I think they were relieved when he was Marked. They didn’t know what to do with a son who is gay.”

There's no way Damien wouldn't be a "trans-girl" if this was written today. And good to know Damien thinks he's above the other gay kids.

“Why did they have to do anything? He’s still their son. He just likes guys.”

“Well, they live in Dallas, and his dad is big into the People of Faith. I think he’s some kind of minister or something—”

I held up my hand. “Stop. You don’t have to say another word. I totally get it.” And I did. I was way too acquainted with the narrow-minded, “our way is the only right way” ideas of the People of Faith. Even thinking about it made me feel exhausted and depressed.

Zoey's stepdad let her do whatever she wanted and got her a car. I don't think her and Damien's situations are comparable. Or maybe they are, and Damien's just annoyed his parents didn't let him go on PrEP as soon as he turned thirteen.

Stevie Rae opened one of the fridges. I peeked over her shoulder to see that it was filled with all kinds of drinks—everything from pop to lots of juices and that fizzy water that tastes nasty.

“What do you want?”

“Any brown pop is fine,” I said.

“This stuff is for all of us,” she said as she handed me two Diet Cokes and grabbed two Frescas for herself. “There’re fruit and veggies and stuff like that in those two fridges, and lean meat for sandwiches in the other one. They’re kept full all the time, but the vamps are pretty obsessed with us eating healthy, so you won’t find bags of chips or Twinkies or stuff like that.”

But they let you drink Diet Coke?

“No chocolate?”

“Yeah, there’s some really expensive chocolate in the cabinets. The vamps say chocolate in moderation is good for us.”

Okay, so who the hell wants to eat chocolate in moderation? I kept the thought to myself as we walked back through the living room and headed upstairs to our room.

So basically, whatever the Casts want, when they want.

“So the, uh, vamps”—I kinda stumbled over the word—“are big on healthy eating?”

“Well, yeah, but I think basically just fledglings eating healthy. I mean, you don’t see fat vamps, but you also don’t see them chewing on celery and carrots and picking at salads. Mostly they eat together in their own dining room, and rumor has it that they eat well.” She glanced at me and lowered her voice. “I heard that they eat a lot of red meat. A lot of rare red meat.”

“Eeesh,” I said, not liking the bizarre visual image I suddenly got of Neferet gnawing on a bloody steak.

I bet Zoey cooks her steak like a rubber boot.

“They want us to eat healthy for the same reason they make us exercise every day—so that our bodies are as strong as possible, because if you start getting weak or fat or sick, that’s the first sign that your body is rejecting the Change.”
“And then you die,” I said quietly.
“And then you die,” she agreed.

I love that this is two girls sorrowfully going:

"No fat chicks," I said quietly.

"No fat chicks," she agreed.

 

[IridiumDragon06]

Tangentially, Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition was probably a mistake.

Tell the Chechnya story! Tell the Chechnya story!

---

And...hmm. So being ugly is literally a sign of Nyx's disfavor? Does this mean people that are naturally weak or sick or fat are nascent vampires, they just die regardless of care?

I feel like if I point out hypocrisy I won't end up stopping, but god-fucking-damn, the gall of Damien to say that he's better for the girls because he's not going to want to touch their boobies, and to get offended when a guy who will be sharing a private space with him thinks he's worse because he wants to touch his pee-pee.

So, when I read something so unartfully crafted, I wonder where various bits come from. Like, the "Teen sex isn't cool!" asides read to me clearly as the senior author letting her own voice boom out through her chosen mouthpiece, but I wonder if the crappy-ass theology comes from the author just being really bad at worldbuilding and thinking that the goddess stuff is cool and interesting, or just deciding "Yeah, that's something that needs to be there for teen urban fantasy." and slapping random symbols and references together.

Why are we getting the weird-ass reductive introductions that come across like actors awkwardly reading out their freeze-frame title cards? Is it supposed to sound friendly and natural and the author has no idea how humans talk? Is it just that she wanted to get the characters out and characterized and didn't care to make the scene flow in any reasonable way? Or is that actually how she talks to people?

I'm not sure if the author is just being a pod-person and adhering to the ancient orthodoxies of, what, ten to fifteen years ago, and in so making herself a horrible CHUD by the enlightened standards of today, or if she does genuinely have her own very strong opinions and the TERF comments aren't just contrasting to Dreadnought, but spicy, spicy foreshadowing as to what the Mother Goddess thinks of men that seek to supplant their betters. That's one of the things about long-running media; you can see how authors react as their opinions change from heterodox to orthodox (or, interestingly, how they don't react, and keep trucking along regardless of the shifts in public opinion.)

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Oh, something I meant to ask in the last review. I don't know a lot about American geography, but isn't Connecticut (where Shaunee is from) closer to New York than Oklahoma? If so, shouldn't she have gone to a House of Night somewhere around there? It seems like it'd be pretty important to have those distributed pretty evenly among population centres, given that fledgelings will die if they aren't surrounded quickly by adult vamps.

 

[Aloof Pessimism]

I feel like telling you all that PC Cast looks like this:

Certainly explains why the "vampyres" in this book all have weird tattoos. The Casts love tats so everyone who is not an ordinary human eww gets tats! Having tats means you are special, unique! And the Vampyre Chosen One gets the most fabulous tats of all!

I think this picture of the Casts also explains Zoey's 'relatable' personality a whole lot, huh.