Book 2: I'd forgotten how annoying the word usage was of the following: brown pop, hag, skank, ho, poop, and twin. :P
Book 3: Zoey is such a skank lol (to use her words). Also, what self-respecting author in this day and age still uses "retarded" as an insult?? That is so infuriating.
Book 5: still an average book after the reread. Still sick of the gay jokes, the non-swearing, the Twins, and Zoey's 5 boyfriends. Yes, she's really up to 5 boyfriends now. And how is she still calling Aphrodite a slut???
Book 7: I'll give them one thing...the covers & inside books on the hardbound are gorgeous. Love the embossing.
3 out of 5 stars
I'm not really sure why all the reviews I've read were so down on Heath. I mean, yes, I agree it was a stupid plot device to bring him back. But I didn't *hate* him the way some of the people did. I thought he was a good guy in love with a stupid girl. Not his fault, happens all the time. Anyway, from the last book, we know that Nyx has granted Heath a chance to be with Zoey again...only problem is, he's coming back as Neferet's play toy, Aurox. (Which is a stupid name btw.) Aurox was granted to Neferet by the white bull, which is Evil/Darkness, after she kills Zoey's mom. Let's talk about Zoey's family a minute, okay? Zoey had a brother and sister before she was Marked. She never mentions them again after the first book. Was she seriously not that close to them?? When Zoey's mom leaves the stupid jerk finally and gets killed, Zoey doesn't contact her siblings. Neither does her Grandma. WTH?? That just annoyed the crap out of me. (Among all the other things about these books lol.)
Okay, back to Neferet and her naaaasty relationship with the White Bull. Ew. That's all I'm going to say. She is still technically the High Priestess at HON but more and more people are seeing her for what she really is: totally evil and severely unhinged. Neferet uses Aurox and the bad red fledglings to cause some chaos at school and also decides to hire some humans to work around the grounds, which annoys Lenobia (the horse lady) especially. Spoiler: It's not really mentioned, but how does Neferet manage to find Lenobia's former love? She knew about him and Lenobia's past, but how?? /end spoiler Some of the bad red fledglings might not be all bad, but some are very, very bad. Neferet pushes the very bad ones even more and they start trying to infiltrate Zoey's group, causing trouble and hassling Rephaim, the bird-boy love of Stevie Rae's life.
I really enjoyed Rephaim's story more than some of the others (ahem, Zoey). He wants to be good for Stevie Rae, but he also doesn't want to turn his back on his father, Kalona. When Kalona reaches out to Rephaim though, to spy for him, Rephaim turns him down. He comes clean about everything immediately to Zoey and the group, but they are still unhappy about his involvement with Kalona. Except for one of the Twins. (I have no idea which one, because I could never keep them straight, so let's call them Twin 1 & Twin 2.) Twin 1 apparently has major daddy-abandonment issues, so she kind of feels for Rephaim and tries to help him, even talking to Kalona about his son. (I'm sensing a romance possibility there too?!) Twin 2 thinks Twin 1 is being totally stupid and they have a fight and break up the Twinness. Twin 2 turns out to be a real B-----. And she just gets worse as the book goes on. Anyway, all that to say I really felt for Rephaim and (almost) Kalona!
I also enjoyed the new girl that gets Marked as a Red Fledgling immediately, because she is blind or "broken" according to Neferet. She has a very interesting story and gift, so I won't spoil it here. She seems to have an "interesting" relationship with Erik, King Jerk, so I look forward to seeing where that goes. This book actually had some really good parts in it, so I'd probably mark it up to a 3.5 if it weren't for Zoey and her boy troubles again. :P
Hidden: House of Night Series Book 10
4 out of 5 stars
I know what you're thinking...4 stars?? Really? Well, compared to the last few, yeah, this book was pretty dang awesome lol. Maybe because it has so many different points of view now, so we're not stuck with Zoey all the time. (Bonus points: when we aren't in Zoey's head, we don't have to hear about her sudden onslaught of IBS. O.o Seriously?? Never been mentioned before and soooo not necessary!!) I honestly think this could have been a last book though, because of the ending. Big, huge spoilers for those who just don't care anymore, but still kind of want to know lol: Zoey & Nerd Herd plus significant others plus Aurox & Kalona & Thanatos manage to sort of destroy Neferet in the end. She turns into a big batch of spiders, which was seriously gross, and kind of disintegrates into the sewers. Couldn't they have just had Stark strike a magic arrow in her immortal heart and be done with it? /end spoiler
Beyond that, the redemption of Rephaim, Kalona, & Aurox/Heath was really nice to read about. Kalona just wants to be back with his Goddess again, so he's trying to be a good guy. Rephaim really is a good guy now and totally devoted to Stevie Rae. And Aurox/Heath...well he feels deep down that he might be something better than Neferet's Vessel. And thanks to Grandma Redbird, he pushes himself in the right direction, towards Nyx. Zoey is convinced that there is more to Aurox than meets the eye, thanks to her magical seer stone, but she has a hard time convincing everyone else. Especially Stark. Who is kind of a jerk in this one.
You know, I've gone on long enough about a lackluster series and I have to review the spinoff novella, Dragon's Oath too, so I'm going to stop here. :)
Okay, back to Neferet and her naaaasty relationship with the White Bull. Ew. That's all I'm going to say. She is still technically the High Priestess at HON but more and more people are seeing her for what she really is: totally evil and severely unhinged. Neferet uses Aurox and the bad red fledglings to cause some chaos at school and also decides to hire some humans to work around the grounds, which annoys Lenobia (the horse lady) especially. Spoiler: It's not really mentioned, but how does Neferet manage to find Lenobia's former love? She knew about him and Lenobia's past, but how?? /end spoiler Some of the bad red fledglings might not be all bad, but some are very, very bad. Neferet pushes the very bad ones even more and they start trying to infiltrate Zoey's group, causing trouble and hassling Rephaim, the bird-boy love of Stevie Rae's life.
I really enjoyed Rephaim's story more than some of the others (ahem, Zoey). He wants to be good for Stevie Rae, but he also doesn't want to turn his back on his father, Kalona. When Kalona reaches out to Rephaim though, to spy for him, Rephaim turns him down. He comes clean about everything immediately to Zoey and the group, but they are still unhappy about his involvement with Kalona. Except for one of the Twins. (I have no idea which one, because I could never keep them straight, so let's call them Twin 1 & Twin 2.) Twin 1 apparently has major daddy-abandonment issues, so she kind of feels for Rephaim and tries to help him, even talking to Kalona about his son. (I'm sensing a romance possibility there too?!) Twin 2 thinks Twin 1 is being totally stupid and they have a fight and break up the Twinness. Twin 2 turns out to be a real B-----. And she just gets worse as the book goes on. Anyway, all that to say I really felt for Rephaim and (almost) Kalona!
I also enjoyed the new girl that gets Marked as a Red Fledgling immediately, because she is blind or "broken" according to Neferet. She has a very interesting story and gift, so I won't spoil it here. She seems to have an "interesting" relationship with Erik, King Jerk, so I look forward to seeing where that goes. This book actually had some really good parts in it, so I'd probably mark it up to a 3.5 if it weren't for Zoey and her boy troubles again. :P
Hidden: House of Night Series Book 104 out of 5 stars
I know what you're thinking...4 stars?? Really? Well, compared to the last few, yeah, this book was pretty dang awesome lol. Maybe because it has so many different points of view now, so we're not stuck with Zoey all the time. (Bonus points: when we aren't in Zoey's head, we don't have to hear about her sudden onslaught of IBS. O.o Seriously?? Never been mentioned before and soooo not necessary!!) I honestly think this could have been a last book though, because of the ending. Big, huge spoilers for those who just don't care anymore, but still kind of want to know lol: Zoey & Nerd Herd plus significant others plus Aurox & Kalona & Thanatos manage to sort of destroy Neferet in the end. She turns into a big batch of spiders, which was seriously gross, and kind of disintegrates into the sewers. Couldn't they have just had Stark strike a magic arrow in her immortal heart and be done with it? /end spoiler
Beyond that, the redemption of Rephaim, Kalona, & Aurox/Heath was really nice to read about. Kalona just wants to be back with his Goddess again, so he's trying to be a good guy. Rephaim really is a good guy now and totally devoted to Stevie Rae. And Aurox/Heath...well he feels deep down that he might be something better than Neferet's Vessel. And thanks to Grandma Redbird, he pushes himself in the right direction, towards Nyx. Zoey is convinced that there is more to Aurox than meets the eye, thanks to her magical seer stone, but she has a hard time convincing everyone else. Especially Stark. Who is kind of a jerk in this one.
You know, I've gone on long enough about a lackluster series and I have to review the spinoff novella, Dragon's Oath too, so I'm going to stop here. :)
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