Title: Marked Author: P.C + Kristin Cast.
Series: House of Night (#1)
Publication Date:
Publisher:
Pages: 306 (Paperback)
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Vampires, Young Adult
*WARNING: This review has swear words and minor spoilers. Also, explosive anger on my part. I am not fond of writing angry, hatred filled reviews, but with books that are this painful and cause me to go into a Book Coma (Yes, this book put me into a coma/reading coma), I can hardly stop myself from throwing flames at the book, though I do try to support my anger and criticism with facts and examples from the book. So, beware, this review isn't very "professional", but it does have things in it that may help you decide whether you want to read this book or not. This is a scathing review.*
KILL IT WITH FIRE AND GIVE ME MY MEDICINE.
I read this book right after I read Fallen my Lauren Kate. Afterwards, I couldn't eat, read, sleep, breathe, or stop banging my head against the wall. I kept hearing voices in my head- Zoey's voice, repeating particularly dreadful phrases from the book, and I would scream and cover my ears, close my eyes, but it continued. Every time I walked by the library, I turned around and went the opposite way. I threw this book at the back of the car after I read Chapter 8 (One of the worst chapters in the book, and they're all abysmal and crappy, so that's saying someonething) and never dared enter that car, or touch the book, again. My dear mother was kind enough to return it to the library for me, seeing as how if I set sight on a real life copy of that thing again, I will have seizures, my eye will twitch, and I will have a conbustion. Or vomit. Either way it will not be pretty.
After this terrifying and severely traumatizing reading experience, I had to hire a therapist to help me get over my fear of reading books again. I was afraid to read because I might stumble upon another "House Of Night" type again, seeing as how this isn't a original plot and the characters are as annoying as hell. In fact, i'd much rather get decapitated by demons and eaten alive by lions than read this book or another one like it. The therapist helped, but the fact that I have to reminescence about this book to write the review, is making my hands shake with fear and sweat form on my brow. In fact, I may have to take several breaks while writing this and have a water break and healthy dose of Harry Potter, The Mysterious Benedict Society, The Hunger Games, or more Harry Potter. My deary Harry, always there for me.
Okay. Okay. *water break, slowly breathing, have Harry Potter by my side.* I can do this.
Let's start with the biggest problem of all. Zoey Mary-Sue Redbird. I think she upped the Mary-Sue scale- sorry, Bella Swan (from Toilet by Stephenie Meyer), you are no longer the biggest, living, waking Mary Sue in Young Adult fiction. You have been replaced by the whiny, spoiled, OBSCENELY hypocritical, boring, dense, *excuse me for the vocabulary, but there is no other word* bitch that we call Zoey Redbird. In the span of the book Marked (yeah, "marked" as the worst book in history of YA fiction...), Zoey goes around hating EVERYTHING on sight, playing victim and calling other girls sluts for kissing a boy. Then, she calls girls who suffer from eating disorders <b>freaks</b> because they suffer from psychological, mental disorders that really have little to do with having a perfect body. COME ON, P.C + KRISTIN CAST. DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING? Eating disorders are serious psychological diseases, it's not about girls wanting to be skinny! Stop acting like you know what you're talking about. You have no right to insult something serious that does kill hundreds of girls around the world every year, if not thousands. Eating disorders and the girls who SUFFER FROM THEM are not 'freaks, and if they read this book, it'd probably worsen their eating disorder condition, not make it better. You have NO idea how much that line bothered me, as I happen to have three people very dear to me suffer from anorexia and bulimia, and it's NOT funny and it's NOT just to look hot, bitch queen Zoey. (Zoey Redbird: She wasn't stick thin like the frak girls who puked or starved themselves into what they thought was Paris Hilton chic. ("Thats hot," yeah, whatever. Paris) Page 46). Zoey goes around bitching and being self righteous about how girls who don't eat to be skinny are pathetic. That's not pathetic- pathetic is whining about girls who are slowly dying from a severe mental disease, Zoey! God, doesn't she have something else to go do, like talk about "boobies" with her annoying, dull best friend Stevie Rae? Which reminds me.
One minute, Zoey is going on about how deep she is, acting all important as she offends Christianity (because that's basically all this book does when they explain the People of Faith.), the next she is giggling with yet ANOTHER boy or gossiping about other girls with Stevie Rae. This is like, taking the stereotypical teenage girl, and taking it up a big notch. Which brings me to yet another topic that makes me want to barf and die- Zoey, boys, and how hypocritical Zoey is. She goes around calling everyone a slut, and by the end of the first book, she has at LEAST three guys- and she's calling Aphrodite a slut 24/7. At least it was just ONE guy Aphrodite made off with, not five, which is thus far the total count of boys Zoey has either slept, kissed, or gotten together with. Zoey is the biggest slut on earth, but when SHE sleeps with 25 different people, it's justified. When another girl sleeps with her boyfriend or crush, suddenly they're some huge slut. Zoey goes around insulting everyone and acting like she's above Aphrodite and her Queen-bee crew, when Zoey is just as shallow, pigheaded, dense, spoiled, whiny, and dull as everyone else, even more so. And all she wears is THONGS. Like we needed to know that. As if the book itself wasn't traumitizing enough on its own with its bad characters and plot, they also take rape and sexual assault and try to make it look all sexy and seductive. WHEN is rape and sexual assault sexy? Seriously, P.C + Kristin Cast? Why did you have to GO there? It was a completely unnecessary element in this book that probably gave me more mental damage than Zoey's pig-headedness and whining. Which brings me to YET ANOTHER TOPIC- the sexism in this book. When a GIRL sexually assaults a boy, somehow it ends up being the poor boy's fault. That's about as sexist as you can get. And I don't know about you, but when a book bashes girls with eating disorders, has sexism,mary sue characters everywhere, and a unoriginal plot, I about want to burn it. NOT to mention the terrible and obvious lack of editing. Everytime I saw an error, I closed my eyes, counted to 20, took 3 deep breaths, and tried for the life of my not to crumple the books pages. Not just because of the obvious lack of editing, but because of the STUPIDITY of the mistakes. And the writing style- well, since I can hardly call this writing, I guess this little part of my "review" (aka my venting about my hatred for this book) is going to be a little...weird. Sorry for my lack of vocabulary in this review, but this book killed my brain cells, so. The writing and its style was TERRIBLE. I don't know how I managed to take noticed of the writing, what with the characters distracting me with their immense stupidity and pig-headedness. They're all more annoying, spoiled versions of the Twilight characters. So how I managed to take note of the sloppy, indescriptive, atrocious writing is beyond me. Really.
*takes water break, reads harry potter to calm down*
Thank god for libraries. If i bought this book, I'd have to torture myself for spending a penny on this sad excuse of a book.
As I said, this wasn't as much a good, structured review as me venting about my overflooding emotions for this book, which still haunt me even when I read this a while back. Sorry about the swearing and lack of organization, but when I come across books that make me cringe, cry, and twitch at every sentence, like the House of Night series, well....I can't seem to write well structured reviews. not that I'm a professional in the first place. Also, I'm pretty sure this book killed my brain cells, so that may be why this review was so...explosive, with lack of better vocabulary to replace the words "stupid, horrible, terrible, crappy, pig headedness, and traumatizing", which were repeated many times, along with the swear words and "spoiled, obnoxious, dull, and lifeless".
So, here it is. I am Team Kill This Book With Fire, because since Zoey has about 3 guys love her, and since she deserves NO guys and all 3 guys SUCK, I am not picking a team. But I am picking ONE STAR.
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