Marked: A House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast (Book 1)

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 vampire. 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 no average fledgling. She has been chosen as special by the vampyre Goddess Nyx. Zoey discovers she has amazing powers, but along with her powers come 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 deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny--with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

Title and author of book: Marked: A House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast (Book 1)

Fiction or non-fiction? Genre? Young Adult Fiction. Fantasy. Paranormal.

What led you to pick up this book? I know a lot of people that love them, and since it is a genre that I enjoy, I thought I would give them a try.

Summarize the plot, but don’t give away the ending! See above...

What did you like most about the book? I liked that the authors came up with an original idea. With all the paranormal books on the market right now they are getting a bit monotonous. This series has the promise of being different. I did like the characters, too. They were interesting and interacted well together, but they were a bit predictable.

What did you like least? Don't kill me! I am just weird, but I don't like this series. I didn't like the writing and found everything a bit predictable. I also found it all a bit juvenile, but I suppose that is the marketing age. They do have a great idea here, but I don't think they pulled it off very well for me. It was a bit cliched, too. All the characters fulfilled a different role that was expected. It was like a stereotypical school. I couldn't find myself loving it, so I don't imagine I will be carrying on with the series. There are just better ones out there that I would much rather spend my time on. Even though I thought the story seemed different, in the end I just thought it was ridiculous! I just didn't find it very plausible, I guess. I am not sure what it was. It just didn't work for me.

Have you read any other books by this author? What did you think of those books? Nope!

What did you think of the main character? I didn't like her. She just about drove me crazy, actually. I did like a few of the secondary characters, though, but she told the story so I had to put up with her throughout. It was a bit strange how she got to the school in the first place, but then everything got so predictable. There was no spark to her character. The authors tried to make it surprising, but it was really just dull. Like I said about, she was cliched.

What about the ending? Another book that I was happy to see come to an end! I had the second book out from the library, but I decided that there were other books that I wanted to read a lot more and took it back unread.

Sorry, everyone. Just not my thing!