Review of Awakened by P.C & Kristin Cast (House of Night #8)

My first thoughts when I started this book were that it was nice of the authors to dedicate the book to GLBT teens and that Zoey needed to return to Tulsa. After reading this book, my first thoughts were that the authors were jerks and that they seem to be fans of inter-species relationships.  If you’re dedicating a book to gay teens, and then you kill off one of the gay characters, what kid of message does that send? Also, naked evil people riding bulls after it’s breath “caressed her in sensitive places”? Gross.

The theme of honesty was a main presence in this book. Being honest with yourself and others is a good idea and really can be liberating.  It’s also semi-brave to tell people something that you know can, or will, change their opinion of you.

I really wish everyone would be nicer to Aphrodite. She helps them a lot with her visions and her gold card, and yet they treat her like crap. She may not be the nicest girl in the world, but I honestly wouldn’t be either if I had to deal with a bunch of ungrateful brats all the time.

The main confrontation in this one was well done and wasn’t completely predictable.  I like Nyx and I think she went about things the right way. It’ll be interesting to see how Rephaim will fit into the rest of the series. I wish Kalona would go away though. The whole thing where he enters into Stark’s body while him and Zoey fool around is dumb and a little ridiculous. He got ejected from Stark the first time due to too much pleasure or something. They need to figure out how to block it from happening.

The character deaths in this one weren’t the greatest either. I realize that it might sound like I hated this book, but I really didn’t.  It just wasn’t as good as some of the other books.  The first death was ridiculous and the character deserved a much better send off than he got. The second character’s death was actually lame and I didn’t care that they were killed.

Hopefully Zoey and her friends will eventually defeat Neferet, but they’ll probably save that for the last book.

A review of Burned by P.C. & Kristin Cast (House of Night #7)

Burned changes things a bit by only focusing on a few characters instead of the whole group. The main characters for this one are Zoey, Stark, Stevie Rae, Rephaim and Aphrodite with appearances by a few smaller characters and some new ones.  It was a great way to show the changes that Stark and Aphrodite have made throughout the series.

The majority of this book takes place in the Otherworld, which is where Zoey ended up in the last book. Can Stark save her?

It has a good pace to it and it’s in third person instead of first person..

Sorry for the short review, but it’s hard not to spoil everything this far into the series. I really wanted to read this faster, but life interfered. I’m starting the next book in the series, Awakened, now.