Booknote: Marked (House of Night Book One)

P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, Marked (House of Night Book One). New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-312-36026-9.

Genre: fiction
Subgenre: vampires, YA, teens, paranormal
Format: trade paperback
Source: Berea branch of the Madison County (KY) Public Library

I picked up this book in part because I saw the Wisdom of the House of  Night oracle cards, which is based on the House of Night series. I figured since the cards seem interesting enough for me to consider adding them to my growing collection of Tarot and oracle cards that I should give one of the books a try. The book has pluses and minuses. For me, it has enough minuses that I won't be reading the rest of the series (unless someone really convinces me to try one more).

On the plus side, I loved the world of the vampires existing in society and the idea that many celebrities today are vampires. I also liked that  not all vampires are the usual gorgeous stereotypes we often see in modern vampire fiction. In addition, I found the marking idea to be pretty cool, and I was fascinated by the setting and layout of the House of Night school. I found myself wishing someone had marked me back in my school days so I got to go to a cool school with decent teachers teaching interesting and actually engaging subjects. To be honest, if the author had made a House of Night guidebook/faux yearbook/or some other more reference-style source, it would have been great, and I would have been hooked fully.

However, the book has its minuses. On the minus side, it is a high school teen drama. House of Night is still like any other school with drama queens, bullies, obnoxious boyfriends, popular girls, cliques, and the other nonsense many of us are glad we left behind. The book starts at a  nice, fast pace that draws you in. Yet once  you get to the school, it becomes much like another CW teen drama. That basically brought the book  down for me; it took a lot of the magic out of it.

For teens, this is probably a decent selection given much of it features things they might relate to. Drama aside, the book does have some pretty good world building. If you must, I'd say borrow the book. It was just OK for me.

As for the deck of cards, I do like the art I  have seen of it so far, so I may consider getting it down  the  road, but there are other decks more worthy of a space in my collection at the moment.

2  out 5 stars.

This book qualifies for the following 2017 Reading Challenges: