Marked

[Original Post on WORD for Teens]
Marked
By P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Thanks to She Who Loves Books for lending me another vampire novel!

Zoey Redbird lives the normal teenage life - her two biggest worries are the huge geometry test tomorrow and her crazy ex-boyfriend who's intent on winning her back. Oh, of course there's the minor factor of the fact that vampyres run the city and a person could be Marked as a vampyre-to-be any second now, but that's not for Zoey to worry about. She couldn't possibly get Marked, right? Right?

Um, wrong. Very wrong.

Not only is Zoey Marked to be a vampyre, but she has been chosen by the goddess Nyx to be her eyes-and-ears in the world. Once she arrives at the House of Night - the school that teaches you how to be a vampyre, properly - she finds out that things aren't just 'Turn into a vampyre and drink blood'. Some people survive the Change into a vampyre, and some don't. Oh, don't forget that the beautiful Aphrodite, leader of the Dark Daughters, has it out for her because her Aphrodite's ex-boyfriend has a crush on Zoey...

I liked this book from page one. It was different - even the way the spelled vampyres was different. Around chapter two, I was going What does this have to do with anything? but everything was pulled together later on in the book. The characters had their flaws, but some, like Aphrodite, seemed to be entirely made of flaws and was missing a benefit to their character, which is really annoying. Characters with only flaws are just as annoying as perfect characters.

Grade: A-