Betrayed: A House of Night Novel

Betrayed: A House of Night Novel


By: P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Reviewed by: gothiclolitamaiden, 15
Rating: Didn't like it


Spoilers Ahead
“After settling in at the House of Night and becoming more comfortable with her vast powers, fledgling vampire Zoey Redbird faces a horrible crisis as human teenagers are becoming victims of a wave of murders and the House of Night becomes the prime suspect.”

The second book in the House of Night series suffers from the same flaws that plagued the first book, Marked (refer to my slightly harsh review of Marked). To be more specific, the characters are still annoying and undeveloped. The characters are so irritating that I haven’t even become truly attached to any of them. Usually, I’ll have a “favorite” character by the time I’ve finished the first book of a series, but no, none of the characters in House of Night really stand out. I liked Neferet at first, but in Betrayed her actions are starting to look really shady. Zoey is of course the most annoying, since she has no self-control and she never confronts any of the problems in her life, just complains about them.

Also, the writing and editing seems very rushed, which is inexcusable in such a relatively short book. If this were a longer book, say five or six hundred pages, I would excuse some of the typos. This is the conversation that probably took place between the authors and the publishing company/editor.

A short drama by gothiclolitamaiden:
Editor: Hi! I have good news. The first book sold well, so we’re going to have you guys continue for say, about six more books, but we’ll have to get them published fast, before this Twilight-induced vampire craze dies off.
Authors: OK! Who cares if there are typos and grammatical errors!
Fin

This conversation probably didn’t take place, but it would explain a lot. As I mentioned earlier, it almost seems as if the writing and editing processes for the book were rushed. There are errors and typos, and even casual readers will notice that certain adjectives are constantly repeated, sometimes twice in the same paragraph. The one that bugged me the most was the adjective “hateful” which was (too) frequently used to describe Aphrodite, the spoiled, mean girl a la Disney Channel. I looked up “hateful” in the thesaurus and found about eight synonyms.

Another problem with this series is that it is way too teen-oriented, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Most of the parents in the series are abusive, manipulative, bigoted, evil, or just plain hateful (hehe). The authors obviously know that many teens distrust adults or like to think that all adults don’t understand teens. Some of the ideas presented in the books are just a bit disturbing. For one, females dominate vampire society in House of Night. I’m all for women’s rights, but the goal should be gender equality, not matriarchal domination.

The only really emotional moment is Stevie Rae’s death scene. In my opinion, she was about the only lovable character, even if she was underdeveloped. About the only other positive aspect is that the plot moves along pretty quick. The only reason I plan to read the next book, Chosen, is to see if Zoey can keep up having three boyfriends at the same time without any of said boyfriends finding out. Sorry if this review is way too long, I’m frustrated with this book and wanted to rant about it…


Recommended to: Teens 14+ Vampire fans