Destined

Life at school becomes more tense and Zoey and her friends insist on parading a murderer around the grieving loved one of his victims and Nyx insists on not intervening with the super evil Neferet still in control

With ties of family and honour, Dragon and Kalona face hard choices: while the new being Aurox must decide exactly what he is.

Time to open another bottle of the Good Booze because it’s another House of Night review (or, as I’ve come to think of it, my penance for the terrible evil I must have committed in a former life).

The first point that struck me about this book was that I realised why Zoey’s mother died last episode – because Jack and Anastasia died. These two deaths could never ever be about Zoey. Even after a show more series of making everything about Zoey, this was too much a stretch. So Zoey’s mother died – and the other deaths are pushed quickly into the background. Damian gets to be occasionally “soggy” but now all deaths are eclipsed because now we have Zoey pain to focus on

I have ranted about this in so many books but the redemption/forgiveness themes in this series are truly and utterly awful.

Take Dragon. Dragon’s wife of several centuries was murdered by Rephaim the bird boy who was magically redeemed last book. Dragon is incessantly shamed and demonised in this book because this terribad evil man will not forgive his wife’s murderer when said wife’s ashes are not even cold. The idea that Rephaim should stay away from school and give this poor man a little space so he wouldn’t have to see his wife’s murderer every day (it’s not like he’d lose out on an education – this school has a terrible curriculum and Rephaim himself is over a thousand years old so how much of a high school education does he need?) is considered outrageous. Rephaim’s desire to experience life as a “normal teenaged life” outweigh’s Dragon’s soul crushing grief

Which, again, is presented as a terrible character flaw. Dragon is losing himself, losing his way – and no-one (not Thanatos and certainly not the useless goddess Nyx) bothers to do anything to try and comfort this grieving man. No they talk about how terribad he’s becoming, how he has to forgive and play nice with Rephaim. And it’s only made worse by the ending and what Dragon has to do to redeem himself. Yes he has to redeem himself

In fact – SPOILER WARNING (really if you care. And if you do, look at your life, look at your choices).

Yes spoilers, scroll over to reveal: Dragon dies, sacrifices himself to protect Rephaim. That is his “redemption” for grieving for his wife – protecting his wife’s murderer at the cost of his own life. This is what redemption looks like in this series – a man shamed for not forgiving his wife killer having to then martyr himself for that murderer.

On top of that we throw in the joy of Becca (remember her? She’s the woman who Stark tried to rape) being even further demonised because she has a “Mean Spirit”. Y’know, even if Becca is a reincarnation of Hitler, it STILL wouldn’t make it ok for Stark to try and rape her – stop trying with this demonising, sex shaming bllshit.

But now we have the utter culmination of redemption – I said it was coming and here it is. Kalona ended this book as team good guy. Yes, Neferet is the biggest of big bads (because we all knew we were going for a female villain) and Kalona, the evil, raping, murdering Kalona, is now being brought back into the fold.

Because of a great big act of redemption? Hah, no, of course not. Like Stark and Rephaim, he did nothing to actually earn his redemption – he’s just declared Redeemed. Yay good guy, everyone forget the victims (who, you’ll note with all three of these men, the victims were primarily female) and embrace them.

There is not enough booze in the world.

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Everyone's ready to get things in place: we've got Thantos here, all should be well, right? This book took me a while to get into- maybe it was the gap between reading the other books and reading this one. So things are unraveling as fast as they're coming together, and I'm not happy with the twin split. I like Shaylin and I definitely want to see more of her. Neferet's whole "I want chaos because it's super fun!" thing was a little weird- she's always seemed to have more purpose and goals to guide her power trips.

Okay so I definitely have some mixed emotions with this book and series as a whole.

At first I was very much Pro-House of Night (and I still am, so don't get me wrong). However, I've read some negative reviews on this book as well and I totally get where all these other people are coming from. Zoey can be a bit annoying at times. There are moments where I feel like I connect with her strongly and there are other moments where I feel like if that were me I could have reacted better than she did.

I still love this series very much and I will continue to read them. However! I do believe that even authors should read reviews on their books. I think the Casts would like to know what our generation thinking about the writing in general as show more well as the Pop Culture references. There were many that I could relate to, but many more that I could not. Although they did a good job, a better job could have been done as well. Thinking about it: The Nerd Herd, as it were called, apparently only connects with things like Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, etc. Nerdy things you might say. Well, I connect with those references to an extent, and it's nice to see that there is a uniform about what their interests are. But when I just read about how Shaunee (the Fire Twin/brain-sharer/mocha latte) doesn't even WANT to be a twin anymore and that she's discovering her own path about who she is... It just makes me question a lot. Like why couldn't the Twins have had their own kind of life but just connect through common similarities? I know that I have a few friends that I'll call Twin because we're so close to how we view things in the world and our likes. It can be scary close to having another one of our own. But to completely give yourself up for another person's opinions just sounds ludicrous to me. I appreciate that Shaunee is now starting to come out of her shell, but that should have happened a while ago in my opinion... and Erin shouldn't have been so bitchy about it.

Ultimately, I'll always hold a special place in my heart for these books, but I do think that authors should really take the time to get to know their audience and really research everything. They've gotten the whole ideology of Wicca and Vampirism down (side note: I love the spelling of vampyre much better, gives it a DIFFERENCE between all other kinds), but when it comes to how being a teen is... it needs a little work. All of the characters have their niche, so they should have reflected off of someone in real life that could have given them even more personality. And personally Damien reminds me quite a bit of Hermione from Harry Potter. Just a vampyre instead of a witch. show less

I was pleasantly surprised in the improvement of characters in this book, as my expectations of this series have dimmed over the course of the series. This book was better. Both Dragon and Lenobia's character are shown more insight as their back stories are revealed, which I'm sure is further explored in the books, Dragon's Oath and Lenobia's Vow. Also, one of the "twins" shows some backbone and stands alone in her beliefs - about time, I might add. Those two drove me nuts every time their dialogue appeared on the page.
Rephaim also continues to battle with his origins and his new lease on life, thanks to Nyx's forgiveness. Though Rephaim himself does little to progress the plot, his presence serves as a major catalyst for both sides and show more drives Kalona to make some interesting choices.
There is also the addition of a new fledgling to the mix, whose addition answers one question about the red fledglings, but brings up many new questions as she has a new gift of True Sight. From the descriptions, she can see auras, though the word is never used for whatever reason, which I also found annoying. One other addition is another adult to the Tulsa House of Night, a major supporter of Zoey and company, who brings a good dose of sanity and maturity that it so desperately needs. I have renewed hopes in the continuation of this series. show less

Well first this I actually enjoyed this book, it's a nice reprieve from the past few books. However, Zoey, her character is quite childish and heavily irritating. I used to like her but ummm not so much anymore.

I still like the others though, like Raphiem, I love him! Stevie Rae eh she is usually ok, this book she was slightly irritating especially when it came to Raphiem's relationship with Kalona (who I still love btw *winks*). Kalona showed a different side of himself in this book, he showed a nurturing and compassionate side, the side where he had missed his favorite child, his favorite son, Raphiem. He missed Raphiem, and through this book he showed the softer side of him, it was great. Shaunee had finally broken away from Erin, show more it was quite nice to see their personalities separately.

But what I loved about this book was "Aurox" I had thought basically from the very beginning that he was sounding very familiar to an old character of the series. So when his inner self was revealed I wasn't surprised at all.

Also Kalona has gone to the side of good, he is going to be Thanatos's Warrior. Now that deems to make things a little more interesting in future books, considering I still see something going on between him and Zoey. show less

OK, I'll go ahead and say it, since it had been boiling inside of me ever since the very first book...

When the F-k shall it end???

With that off my chest, I can truthfully declare I'm no longer even in for the ride to find out how it ends.

Because, frankly, the sheer confusion that reigns in each book gives me headache. Especially in this one. Except for the end part - that was as streamlined as it gets. And oh boy do I wished the fight would finally arrive in all its gory glory.

I think this book was rather overloaded. My brain is mush.

it's taken a while to get through this book, because so much has happened in the last books that it's hard to keep track of where they are, who's alive and who's good and who's evil. I was totally confused about some of the stuff with Eric in the beginning and with the new girl Shaylin. They really only made one or two appearances if I recall correctly. But all-in-all it was once again a great book by the Cast team. Zoey reminded me of my BFF and Stevie-Rae reminded me of myself once again, so that was something to put a smile on my face. I'm now extremely excited for the next book to come out, because I want to Neferet getting her butt kicked!