Teen angst vampire style: a book review of 'Marked' by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast

A better title for this book for me would be things you read when you are awaiting a diagnosis.* I’m not even going to pretend that some of you haven’t rolled your eyes up to heaven and written me off as a reviewer. All I can say is yes, I am reading yet another book aimed at the young adult market, and yes I enjoyed it, and yes as a writer I’m looking into the young adult genre because it is red hot (particularly if vampires are in the mix). Above my current life stress, I am also Machiavellian when need be. 

I’ve seen the ‘House of Night’ book series at Target for some time and have admired the covers. After reading ‘Marked’ which is the first of the series, I went ahead and bought the other three. Since there is such hoopla over the ‘Twilight’ series and I believe all of the books have been green lighted for movie production, I was left wondering where the ‘House of Night’ series stood. I should also note that I have read all four of the ‘Twilight’ books so I can truly delve into the comparisons.

‘Marked,’ and the following books, are all written by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast, a mother and daughter team from Oklahoma. The book is an interesting mix of Midwestern values, Goddess worship, Hogwarts imitation with references to oral sex thrown in for good measure. The story starts out with the presumption that vampires are out in the open and in Tulsa there is a special school for them to attend called ‘House of Night.’ Zoey is sixteen and chatting with her best friend about Zoey’s boyfriend’s drinking issues when she is suddenly ‘marked’ by a vampire known as a tracker (think a school recruiter you can’t say no to). Incidentally a vampire fledgling (apparently vampires aren’t born, they are chosen) has to attend one of the House of Night schools or they die as in die die, not die as in undead die (although I’m still not quite understanding that, but I’ll drop it for the time being). Zoey then rushes home to her mother who she describes as having become a Stepford wife since she married her new husband three years ago. He is an elder with the ‘People of Faith’ religion, which I took to mean a conglomerate of all patriarchal religions joined together. His last name is Heffer if that gives you any idea as to how the Cast women want readers to think of him. Zoey reveals that she has been marked and her mother immediately calls her hubby that she wants her three children to think of as their father since their father abandoned the family a decade ago. This result is a plan to keep Zoey locked in her room in hopes of remedying the situation through prayer. The plan backfires as Zoey escapes and goes to her Cherokee grandmother’s home in the country and has an accident and meets Nyx who is also known by several Goddess names such as Gaea and Grandmother Spider. Nyx tells Zoey that she needs her to be her eyes and ears which Zoey doesn’t understand but will soon enough. Further, when she was marked by the tracker she was given a crescent moon outline tattoo which after her meeting with Nyx is filled in, unheard of for fledglings. This is the set up for the novel.

There is no way for me to review this novel and not compare it to Stephenie Meyer’s ‘Twilight.’ I know that it is no secret that Meyer herself is a Mormon and wrote her vampire series with some basic Morman approved principles in mind. This doesn’t mean that the books are springboards for the Mormon faith because they’re not, but that there is a point made that the characters do not engage in sexual activity until they are married. Meyer’s deserves a lot of credit in that, despite some lack of writing finesse in some areas, she is able to follow her own moral code without seeming to be preachy about it. In terms of the relationship between the two main characters, the lack of sexual contact prior to marriage fits the storyline. In regards to ‘Marked’ Zoey, who we discover is a virgin, makes her way to the cafeteria upon arriving at her new school only to witness one of her classmates trying to provide a sexual service to another student in the hallway. The girl is rebuffed in her advances by the boy vampire but not before tearing his jeans with her sharpened fingers. Also I noticed that a certain f word was thrown about in this novel (not to the point that I thought it was overused, but I did notice it) which isn’t something Meyer’s did in her series, nor J. K. Rowling does in the Harry Potter novels.

What I did like about this novel was that it made the teens relatable in their interactions with each other. There are the mean girls and the class sloth along with the token gay male friend and several female friends in supporting roles. It is apparent that the Casts went into this project knowing full well that they wanted to develop a series and they do a good job with leaving some issues, such as vampire zombies (my term, not the Casts, as far as I know based on where I am in the series) to be hashed out in future books. The plot was good along with most of the character development. I also appreciated that the story took place in Tulsa. I suppose this might reflect a prejudice on my part since I read a lot of literature aimed at the female market, but I am really tired of all the heroines in these novels suffering their chick lit torments in New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, or London.

What I thought could have used some work were those devilish details. I’m done reading the third book and since the few pages of ‘Marked’ there is no mention about Zoey’s brother and sister (on page 16 she mentions a sister and a troll playing video games, which I assumed was her brother since her stepfather was at work). Sure, I get it, she has issues with her Steploser (as she calls him) and her mother, but does that mean she has divorced herself entirely from the rest of her nuclear family unit? The character thinks about her grandmother a lot, but not her sister or brother? Heck, I think she has mentioned her wayward missing father more than she has her siblings in the series. Also there is this immediate embracing of a new best friend while her old best friend is written off like yesterday’s news which doesn’t feel balanced – especially since the Casts seem to want these vampire fledglings to seem as normal…or as normal as the students at Hogwarts.

Obviously, I like this book enough to buy the rest of the books now out in paperback (‘Haunted,’ the fifth book is still in hardback). They are easy peasy (something the characters say that I found worth copying) summer reading. I also know that these books appeal not only to teen girls and myself (not a teen girl) but also to some of my peers who have marked the series as something they want to read when I am done. Although I enjoy all the Goddess and pagan references I know that some people may not, thus I warn that although I wouldn’t say the book was anti Christian it doesn’t necessarily depict a fair and balanced world where some Christians (I don’t even think this book mentions Christianity per se) are accepting folks who don’t expect the world to believe as they do.

I have to admit that I am surprised that at the moment it doesn’t seem as if this series has been slated for film. Okay, hold the presses, I just IMDB the P. C. and Kristin Cast and apparently the book has been optioned for a movie to be released in 2011. And there you have it.