Sunday, August 9, 2009

Review - Betrayed (House of Night, Book 2) by P.C. and Kristin Cast

Betrayed (House of Night, Book 2) by P.C. and Kristin Cast
Pages: 400
Rec for people who love: Vampire Chick-lit, and people who miss their high school days.

Summary: Things seem to be going pretty well for Zoey Redbird. She's settled in at the house of night finishing school and is coming to terms with her incredible new powers. It all seems too good to be true. And guess what?

Someone has been murdering human teenagers and all evidence points to the vampyres at Zoey's school. Which means her first assignment as the leader of the dark daughters is finding out which one of her classmates or teachers is a killer.

Sigh. And she thought her boyfriends (yes, plural) were going to be her biggest problem this year....

Thoughts: Yet again, as with The Dead Girls' Dance by Rachel Caine, the second book in the series has convinced me to enjoy it! Betrayed made me laugh, made me - surprisingly, even though I sob pretty easily - cry, and, all-in-all got me out to the store to buy the rest of the series.

Admittedly, the writing is almost painfully, er, un-good. Most of the characters are rather simplistic stereotypes, and the Casts remind us of the events of the last book - and at times the last chapter - to distraction. But the writing flows, so reading through the bits you don't enjoy does not take too long.

In my review for Marked, I complained about the books painful realism. And while the characters are still very much the same as they were in the last book, for some reason I found the same realism refreshing. Having Zoey sit in a Starbucks and talking about Brokeback Mountain, well... it was actually kind of enjoyable.

As for the romance mentioned in the summary, it is very well done. Having Zoey juggling three guys at once I found amazingly acceptable. Instead of sitting through the scenes wondering what these three guys see in her, I instead can understand what she sees in all three. Hell, I might not have done any different in her shoes.

Villain wise, the Casts have really taken it to the next level. Zoey learns to empathise with those she hated, and comes to realise the people she considered allies may not always have her best interest at heart. Hell, the book is called Betrayed, which kinda gives you an idea how it goes!

All in all, a huge improvement over the first in the series, but if you hated Marked you probably still aren't going to enjoy Betrayed!

2 comments:

  1. I loved your review..I fall into the category of not liking Marked so much. So I don't think I will continue on with Betrayed..your review nailed exactly why I didn't like it. The book was easily read and even a bit entertaining, just too high school for me:)

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  2. @Mandi - It's the high school that seems to get to a lot of people. High school was hard enough to get through without having to revisit it in fiction!

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