Review--Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast

ENTER THE DARK, MAGICAL WORLD OF THE HOUSE OF NIGHT, a world very much like our own, except here vampyres have always existed. Sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird has just been Marked as a fledgling vampyre and joins the House of Night, a school where she will train to become an adult vampyre. That is, if she makes it through the Change--and not all of those who are Marked do. It sucks to begin a new life, especially away from her friends, and on top of that, Zoey is not an average fledgling. She has been chosen as special by the vampyre Goddess Nyx. Zoey discovers she has amazing powers, but along with her new powers comes bloodlust and an unfortunate ability to Imprint her human ex-boyfriend. To add to her stress, she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers: When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite group, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deeper within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny--with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

So I read Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast as one of the banned books from banned book week and I have a few ideas as to why this one was banned. I just don't know what the official banning mark was. Overall it wasn't too bad. I've heard mix reviews of this series and don't know if I will go any further into it at the moment. Maybe via library if I don't have anything to read.

Some things I didn't like was that for awhile the book was too...high school-ish? I know it's YA, but sometimes Zoey really annoyed me with her behavior and I guess ways? I don't know how to explain it, it was like a cliche of high school-ness and it was really annoying. There were times when I didn't quite like Zoey because she came off a little stuck up, but then I had to remind myself that this is her story, so it will be her thoughts and her dilemmas and her problems. Sometimes I do have to remind myself of that with first person novels, but normally the MC doesn't come off to me as being full of themselves. Zoey wasn't like this 100% of the time, just a little bit here and there, but enough to drive me crazy at times.

The storyline itself was pretty interesting. Vampires exist in the world and everyone knows it. Heck, there were celebs who were vamps! So parts of it was quite entertaining. There was even a vampire-hate group, sort of. And her stepfather was a very dedicated member to that, so imagine poor Zoey having to tell her mother, who had become sort of delusional and totally devoted to her new husband and ignored her children--according to Zoey. It wasn't pretty. I really felt bad for her then, luckily she at least had an amazing grandma who was there for her to give her the care and understanding she so craved.

Most of the plot basically centered around Zoey adjusting to her new life as a soon to be vampire. She was marked, so in a few years she would become an adult vampire. The whole process of Marking was a little confusing and wasn't really explained, it just goes that a vampire Marks a human so that they might become a vampire when they're older, some don't always make it and die. Zoey witnesses two deaths at school of cases like this.

There was more high school drama as there is the popular mean girl--mean being b*tch. And Zoey isn't afraid to stand up to her, which was sort of cool I guess. Again, some of the high school-ness made me sick because it was a little too cliched like I mentioned.

Zoey soon learns she is special, of course!, and has abilities that not all new fledglings have. Where this will take her, I don't know, but it will obviously be a problem of some kind later down the line. There were also a few loose threads at the end, that I can't discuss due to being spoilers, but they leave you hanging and wondering what the heck is going to happen next.

So I'm torn about how I feel about this book despite the cliches and too high school-liness that made it up. I know it's YA, but I just couldn't really get into the book. So overall I would have to give it a 2.5/5--an okay read, that I don't want to totally bash. But I wouldn't really recommend buying this one if you feel a little too skeptical like I was. Had I not won a copy, I likely wouldn't have bought the series. A good library read though if you're curious about it. Like I also said, if I find myself in need of something to read, I might try the library for the next book out of curiosity.