Post # 6 Book Three Book Review

Marked by P.C Cast and Kristin Cast is a different kind of Vampire novel. Zoey Redbird is your typical teenage girl going to public school with a love affair that has been going on since elementary school, when her life gets changed drastically. Zoey gets “marked” as you would say and is sent to the House of Night to go through the change into a Vampire. When Zoey arrives she is thrown into a whole different world than she is use too. She must find where she fits in, who her real friends are, and who is good and who is evil. But is evil always as it seems? “You are old beyond your years Zoeybird. Believe in yourself and you will find a way. But remember darkness does not equate to evil, just like light does not always bring you good.” How will you find out what good and evil is when you have to consider that bad might bring you good, and good might bring you bad. That’s not the only thing Zoey has to get use too, she has to get use to the fact that moving to the House of Night may create a love triangle she never asked for;  deciding who she can’t live without and who she can.

At the House of Night, all vampires have a best friend too, a cat. You don’t get to choose what cat you want though, they choose you. It’s an odd phenomenon that you would never expect, but cats have it in good with the vampires goddess, Nyx. They are protectors and the most loyal animals alive. Although, I think it is a bit odd. In the book cats are described as describing your character, “I’ve found that the way a person feels about cats – and the way they feel about him or her in return – is usually a gauge by which to measure a person’s character…” I personally think this is an unnecessary part in the book that Cast fits into the plot of it in a weird and unique way.

The plot of the novel starts to take shape when Zoey and he group of friends, “The Gang”, notice some misgivings happening in one of the schools top leading groups, and it is their job to fix it and get rid of the wrong. As they all discover new abilities about them self as they go through this challenge. The book itself is a good read if you love the paranormal world of vampires and the god gifted powers. If you don’t, well then don’t even bother picking the book up.

The language in the book could be more sophisticated, it is more surrounded by slang and how teenagers talk, so I suggest if you are older than 20, don’t even bother picking it up because it won’t appeal to you. I think it is more appealing to the younger generation also because of the way the story is formatted, it’s an easy read. The plus side to the book though, is the visuals of everything. They go into great detail about what the characters look like and their personality traits so you can actually visualize what they look like in your head. Not to mention they have created a rather “hip” website that goes along with the book that has a yearbook of all the main characters in it.

Overall the book is worth the read if you love twisted love stories, with some darkness, magic, and the unexpected. The main plot throughout the series of the House of Night is, will they survive the change into a vampire, or will they die fighting for it? It may seem like a burden when you first get marked, but in the end it turns into more of a blessing than you could ever imagine.

Click to go to House of Night Yearbook

Post # 5 Lines Between Genres

I think for a book to be considered non-fiction it needs to be all the way true. I think this, because people learn from books, we use them to study, and to collect knowledge. How are we supposed to know which books are giving us the full truth and which ones are giving us half-truths? Professionals also use books to learn and what if one of our doctors learned from a book that we thought was the whole truth, but was really not? I don’t agree with Shields on how they need to obliterate the lines between non-fiction and fiction because how are we supposed to know the truth when we need it?

                I also don’t agree with “half-truths”. If you are going to write something down on paper and say it is a true story, half-truths don’t count as a true story. I don’t understand why it is so hard for people to tell the truth, the whole truth, now- a-days. If it doesn’t make a good story when you tell the whole truth, then don’t write a non-fiction story. Write a fiction story if that is what you are good at, don’t label it as something it isn’t just to get onto the best sellers list. It’s pathetic.

              I think we do need lines between genres. If we don’t have lines then how are we supposed to know what we can count on as the truth? What if we want to learn something from a book, but we never know if it is an actual experience or not? I think it is important to have lines because from my own personal experience, I love reading. When I was growing up I liked reading true stories about someone else’s life or encounters because it gives you advice when you aren’t really looking for it. It helps you develop your views. I also loved reading fiction because you still learn from it, but in a different way.