Zoey is facing the task of completely redeeming and
rebuilding the Dark Daughters into a new, reformed organisation. A difficult
task for her at the best of times – but with boys from her old school going
missing, police suspecting vampires and three guys vying for her attention,
Zoey has a lot of distractions.
Before we begin the review, I must remind everyone that
my suffering through this series is the fault of Cyna and Mavrynthia and Merriska. I cannot even remember how they convinced me to go along
with this torturous read – but in the name of some partial justice I think
everyone should remind Cyna that she’s only read the first book of the Fallen
Series and really really needs to read the rest.
Ok, let us start positively. Yes, I actually can start
positively on this book (well, in relative terms). I do appreciate that an
effort has been made in this book to make Aphrodite less of a complete avatar
of awfulness (by giving her parents who are complete avatars of awfulness). There’s
also a toning down of the all consuming slut shaming of the last book – certainly
not a removal of it by any stretch, but a definite reduction. There was also a
half-decent attempt at an emotional death scene
I’m not saying any of these are good, because they’re really not and in any other book I would bite off my fingers before saying anything positive about these things, but Marked set the bar so damn low that exceeding my expectations is pretty damn easy to do. Kind of how falling in a compost heap feels more like a warm, soft landing after having swum through a toxic cess pool.
The first complaint I have about this book is the glaring
void where the plot needs to be. I have sat for 10 minutes trying to figure out
what happened and come up empty time and again. Some guys disappear but she
watches that on the news, that’s hardly a plot point. She just kind of wanders
around not doing a whole lot until we have some action hastily tacked on the
end.
I suppose, in theory, the reformation of the Dark
Daughters, the super club of the House of Night is the plot. But it’s not only
completely lacking in any kind of substance, but it’s also comically awful.
First of all she does a whole lot of research to come up
with the genius idea of a student council. No, really, that’s her master plan that
actually requires research on her part which would be sad to begin with. But it
gets worse – because she also decides she hates how cliquish the Dark Daughters
was under Aphrodite so she’s totally going to make it different no – by making
6 of the 7 council members her, her friends and her boyfriend. Marvel at this
for a moment, to remove the cliquishness of the Dark Daughters she decides to
replace Aphrodite’s friends with all of her own friends. Yes, Zoey lacks even
the slightest sense of self-awareness.
But it gets even worse! Because she decides that they
will also have a code of conduct to uphold virtues based on the 5 elements
(fire, air, earth, water and spirit). Ok I think this could work – personally I
think codes of conduct should be based on virtues you want to uphold rather
than whether they make a neat set, but I can see, say, courage or passion for
fire, tenacity and steadfastness for Earth or…
….ha! Nope, she’s going by the first letters. Seriously,
it’s “authenticity” for air and “faith” for fire. Her meaningful virtue system
doesn’t even work in another language. It’s also completely that vague – so all
the Dark Daughters now have to be “authentic” whatever that actually means – as
well as “sincere” for spirit (which I kind of think is just double dipping the
same virtue).
To make this nonsense even more galling is the way
everyone treats her like she’s some incredible, amazing genius for coming up
with this basic, hollow, empty nonsense. No, really, one character even thinks
this amazing non-idea is so impressive that she actually steals it. It’s like
copying of a 10 year old for your dissertation. It’s depressing and it’s
classic Mary Sueness – the protagonist comes up with the weakest, most pathetic
non-idea and everyone fawns over it like it’s utter genius. She literally “sweated for weeks” over these
ideas.
On top of this non-idea we have the love triangle – well,
square.
I’m not a fan of a love triangle in any book but in this
book it’s expressly galling to have the protagonist have 3 separate love interests
when so much of this series to date is dedicated to saying what dirty nasty
jezebels sexual women are and how all legs must be firmly cemented together in
fear of ho-dom. It’s gross hypocrisy to present female sexuality in such a terrible
fashion, attacking women constantly as “sluts” and “hos” and then have your
protagonist rack up three hot guys to follow her around.
And each relationship is problematic. Sexy guy 1 is the
hot teacher who who is hot and quotes poetry while getting all handsy with her.
She gets all frustrated that he almost kisses her but doesn’t, never mind the
actual boyfriend she has – or that he’s a teacher. The fact that he’s a teacher
trying to get it on with a 16 year old is barley even touched upon – he’s just
a hot guy and everyone may now drool, never mind power difference or abuse of
position. Here’s one time when we can start yelling “shame” and everyone’s
silent on the issue
Then there’s the ex-boyfriend human who she regards with constant
contempt. She will occasionally mention that he’s cute, but every other word
she has for him is contemptuous. Of course, the reason why he wants her so much
is because he is magically compelled by her vampire-yness. His free will is
completely compromised, he is addicted to her and she can literally magically
stalk him. Again, there is precious little attempt to address the abusive
nature of this relationship, instead it’s just a conflict because poor poor Zoey
doesn’t know who to choose, like it’s her complicated love life rather than
abuse.
The final love interest is Eirik. He’s pretty and he does
Shakespearean monologues. This is it. There are manikins with more personality.
It says a lot that his lack of personality stands out next to the rest of the
characters – because no-one is developed. Her enemies are terribad awful. Her
friends are characterless sycophants (two of them with the same personality who
call each other “twin”). It’s amazing that Eirik can have even less personality
than these hollow caricatures
This lack of character is especially problematic with the
marginalised characters who become walking caricatures. Shaunee, a Black woman,
is like someone called to central casting for a sassy Black girl (and this is
only made worse by her white, blonde “twin” adopting the exact same language
use and even speaking as a Black woman – and no-one cares, especially not
Shaunee!). She continues to be referred as food – this time taking the old
coffee (she’s a coffee latte this time) and chocolate similies and adding “brown
sugar”. No really:
“You can tell him
that if he wants a little brown sugar in his Juliet he need look no further
than right here.”
An actual quote. It’s one of those times when I feel
genuinely uncomfortable quoting a book because reaaaalllly?!
At very least Zoey’s super-special woo-woo isn’t so
directly linked to her Cherokee heritage, though her grandmother is still a
caricature of a wise-woman shaman.
Damien is still our token gay friend. It’s almost sad that
that authors think they are being they are being progressive by repeatedly
expressing how terrible Damien’s parents homophobia is, but then go on to make
such a walking stereotype. Literally everything Damien does or says is
referenced back to his sexuality somehow, he’s the worst Gay Shark I’ve ever seen. Even the way he’s
described – he manages to say things “gayly” (whatever that means) and how he “gayer than he usually looked”.
We have additional bonuses like referring to one character
as “like and old-time movie star (without
the latent homosexual tendencies)”, completely downplaying the homophobia
of teen boys as standards, as well as Shaunee and Erin getting all fetishistic
and drooly over the idea of gay men kissing. We also have a new character who
everyone assumes is gay but he never confirms it. But he has named himself
after a character in Brokeback Mountain. Yes he’s another character entirely
defined by his sexuality – he exists to (presumably) be gay and fetch a carry
for the precious Zoey Sue. It’s really appallingly terrible.
On top of all this we have some added annoyances – like everyone
being so impressed with Damien’s vocabulary which is pretty much not that
impressive. I’m saddened at what low opinions the author has for a teenaged
readership that the words he uses are considered so taxing.
Any decision Zoey has to make is easily handled by the
Irritable Bowel Goddess. Nyx happily gives her stomach gramps and rumbles every
time she has to decide what to do, therefore saving her from ever actually
having to make a decision or apply logic (thankfully) or have a reason for her
decisions. Or how they obsess about
health because (of course), the fledglings can die at any time – so their diet
is very healthy. Except Zoey drinks a dozen full sugar “brown pops” a day and
starts every day with two bowls of full sugar cereal. It’s stuff like that that
really annoys me – it’s such a simple bit of world building that could so
easily be fixed to make it consistent. We also have an epic amount of recapping
and
Stand Alone Stuffing, like so much happened in the last book to really need
that much recap? Maybe they assume that readers were so traumatised they just
forgot everything in an attempt to preserve their minds? Or the clumsy
presentation of vampires as facing considerable prejudice yet every single
famous person is turned into a vampire. Ok marginalised people can be famous –
but literally every famous person is turned into a vampire in this book.
There’s also some truly
gross appropriation of Black race riots comparing them to these
oh-so-powerful and famous vampires.
Let’s return to that death I talked about which was, almost, emotional and sad. Well there’s one huge problem here – Zoey’s epic self-involvement. Even on this character’s death bed she is telling Zoey to look after herself and everyone to look after Zoey. The grief after the character’s death is ALL ABOUT ZOEY. Even though there are other characters who have known the dead one for far longer, everything is about Zoey: changing her clothes, helping her deal, carrying away buckets of her vomit. It’s all about Zoey on a level that is really kind of sickening.
It seems ridiculous to complain that a book that fails on
so many levels fails to live up to its potential. But it does bother me that
they could really make a point about death in this book – how the fledglings
could die at any time and how painful that is but also how much death becomes a
common occurrence that it fades into the background, unremarked on and with the
dead ungrieved and unremembered. But it isn’t remarked on – and Zoey’s own
grandmother tells her to move on before the body is even cold! Even as Zoey decides
that her friend will be remembered, there’s no attempt to provide the same service
for the many other fledglings who died. Again it’s both self-absorbed and
complete lack of any real development, it’s beyond depressing.
Similarly the rigid gender roles of the vampires – male vampires
are all physical and strength while female vampires are all mystical. Of course
Damien crosses the line because, as it said in the last box, he’s not a real
man to them.
Honestly, it seems petty at this point to complain about
the terrible writing.
In the end, this book is technically better than the
first book. That’s nothing to be proud of. It is still a trainwreck of awful
with no decent plots, absolutely no characterisation and some truly appalling
caricatures and stereotypes. The only good thing I can say is that it’s not as
utterly awful as the previous book so I almost finished it feeling quite
relieved. Yet it’s still far from anything resembling a decent book.
