Marked (House of the Night #1) by P.C. & Kristin Cast - Book Review

I first mentioned this series in My Top 10 Books I Have Always Wanted To Read, But Never Got Round To, and I am slowly making my way down the list. I had a copy of Marked on my Kindle, and decided it was better late than never to get into this series.

Short summary courtesy of Goodreads: The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampyres have always existed.

 

This book starts off as any over YA fantasy fiction, a dysfunctional family, difficult school life & a big change - Zoey was 'Marked'. This character is a little more 'popular' than the average protagonist, going out with the most popular boy in the school, but she is the same 16 year old wannabe that had me rolling my eyes.

Having said this, the concept of this book is really interesting. The first chapters felt very similar to Twilight, but it soon merged into a far more original and intriguing world. The House of the Night school defiantly feels a little like Hogwarts, with it unusual lessons and flamboyant teachers, just with vampires which is spelt Vampyers in the book. It worked really well, pulling in contemporary references of the real world, including anecdotes about  celebrities that the protagonist did and didn't like in a way that set this book as a fantasy based in the real world.  

The writing style works well, the Mother and Daughter writing team must be difficult to master, but it results in an easy to read and engaging prose that both paints an amazing picture and lets you inside the 16 year girls mind (with a series of comments in brackets adding Zoey's thoughts along the way).

The character stereotypes were a little predictable, and even although this is going to be a ten book series I can guess where it is going already. But this is part of the appeal for YA books, and I found myself wanting to whip out the Kindle at any opportunity to devour another chapter. 

My biggest grudge has to be the formatting of this eBook. I am not sure how they converted it from paperback onto the Kindle store, or if it is just my font size on the Kindle (which is smaller than the default) but someone needs to sort out the formatting! Line breaks happened at random, chapters started and finished on the same page and other major errors which at times were not just annoying but distracting from the content.

This is a great little read, and when I finished it I was almost sad to see it end, but the 10 book series does intimidate me. The £5 price tag on each of these books is a little pricey considering the size of the series, and this does put me off reading more and getting hooked! This is one to borrow from your library or a friend, and maybe not one to read on your Kindle!

Overall I give the book a generous:

7/10

Have you read this book &/or series? What did you think? Will you be checking it out?

Love Rie x