House of Night Eight

Awakened


Written by: P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Released: January 4, 2011 by Atom

Summary: At the start of Awakened, the pulse-pounding eighth instalment of the bestselling House of Night series, Zoey has returned, mostly whole, from the Otherworld to her rightful place as High Priestess at the House of Night. Her friends are just glad to have her back, but after losing her human consort, Heath, will Zoey—or her relationship with her super- hot Warrior, Stark—ever be the same? Stevie Rae is drawn even closer to Rephaim, the Raven Mocker with whom she shares a mysterious and powerful Imprint, but he is a dangerous secret that isolates her from her school, her red fledglings, and even her best friends. When the dark threat of Neferet—who is coming closer and closer to achieving her twisted goal of immortality—and Kalona returns, what will it take to keep the House of Night from being lost forever, and what will one desperate girl do to keep her heart from being irreparably broken?

They really need to either stop writing these books or just wrap them up because I’m sick of this drawn out bullshit (oh, I mean bullpoopie [idiotic]). It’s in my opinion that these books could have ended a few instalments ago if they just cut out the middle crap and got down to the nitty gritty. I mean, I get it; Neferet is evil, Zoey is good, and people are stupid enough to fall for anything that they’re told.

When I first started to read this book I was so happy that it wasn’t focused on Stevie Rae and I went in with high expectations from what my cousin told me about it. Note to self; don’t trust the cousin who lends you pointless vampire books. So I started to get all excited before I even cracked open the first page. But boy was I disappointed. I think that I skimmed 2/3 of this novel and half-read every other page. Point is, I just didn’t care about reading this and I only finished it to say that I did.

This book read like all the others in the series only with different problems. All is well, evil comes, evil is somewhat beaten back, and nothing is really solved but it feels like it was. Everything was predictable but there were a few tiny elements that were a surprise. Blah, blah, blah.

I think that this entire series arc could have been something great. After all, it was a new spin on the vampire lore and it introduced some pretty great characters and a fantastically complex (on paper) battle between good and evil. But eight books (with several more on the way), is much too much. Hell, look at everything that Harry Potter went through and he only had to deal with seven novels. This just goes to show that children will read larger novels if they hold their attention. If condensed and stripped to the necessities I think that these novels would do just that. But there are at least two more books and the material is getting stale and boring.

I didn’t hate this particular book but I know that in time I’ll try and remember exactly what happened in it and I won’t be able to. All I’ll know is that it was okay and not something that I would read again. I’m also very happy that didn’t spend money to read this. I give it a 2.5/10. Sadly, I’ll more than likely read the next book when it comes out in November. Apparently I’m a glutton for punishment. But at least the cover is pretty...