Nevermind, Aphrodite’s Not Normal Yet: House of Night Untamed Chapter 4

Guess what? I’m on vacation visiting friends in Nashville! I have been in Nashville since my last post on Friday! If I found out you guys threw any crazy parties while I was gone, I’m gonna be so mad.

House of Night: Untamed Chapter 4

Zoey goes to her room and finds Aphrodite already there, waiting for her. Aphrodite explains that she’s in Zoey’s room because vampyres don’t use locks, because the Casts seriously have to re-explain every single minor detail every single book. Furthermore, Stevie Rae is outside the window, having scaled the wall using her new un-undead-vampyre climbing abilities.

Everyone be very excited for Stevie Rae.
Everyone be very excited for Stevie Rae.

Zoey also uses this opportunity to remind the reader that until recently, Stevie Rae was one of many dead House of Night students turned undead zombie/vampyres, but she uniquely held onto some of her humanity, possibly because of her special affinity for earth. I guess this is a useful reminder, since there’s so much pointless shit happening in this series that we actually haven’t seen any of those creatures for over an entire book.

Stevie Rae then realizes that all of her stuff is missing from Zoey’s room, and she gets really mad about it. Even the characters in House of Night groan and remind her that this is because the rest of the world is under the impression that Stevie Rae is dead, I mean seriously, Stevie Rae, get with the program, Jesus Christ.

They have a whole goddamn conversation about Stevie Rae’s notoriously tacky taste in accessories before someone in this fucking book finally asks Aphrodite why the twist that happened to her at the end of the last book seems to have been totally undone.

Aphrodite sighed, and with a weirdly slow motion-like movement, she brought the back of her hand up and wiped it across her forehead, causing the outline of the crescent moon to smear and partially rub off.
I gasped. “Oh, god, Aphrodite! You’re . . .” My words sputtered out as my mouth refused to say it.
“Human,” Aphrodite supplied for me in a flat, cold voice.

tracy morgan gasp

Ok. I probably should have guessed that something was up, but I hardly think I should have anticipated that the bar was as low as “the Goddess-given vampyre tattoos can apparently be very convincingly faked with makeup or marker or something”.

Stevie Rae begins to explain that Aphrodite still isn’t a normal human, however. But before this can be explained, we have to waste more time in typically House of Night ways. Like insults that don’t make sense:

“Again with the bad G-rated movie analogy.”

Fights over who loves Zoey the most:

“No wonder Zoey needs a new BFF. You’re totally a Pollyanna pain in the ass.”
“Zoey does not need a new BFF!” Stevie Rae yelled

Aaaaaand racism:

“You should have eaten your countrified mom when you were dead,” Aphrodite said, bowing up like she thought she was black.

I have no idea what that’s even supposed to mean, but I’m 100% certain it’s racist.

This was a very convenient gif for me to just stumble upon.
This was a very convenient gif for me to just stumble upon.

You don’t really care how Aphrodite and Stevie Rae eventually stop fighting, because you know there’s so little character development in this series that they’ll just start fighting again for the same reason anywhere between eight chapters and eight books from now, right? Good. Because I genuinely don’t know why they stop fighting, and it genuinely doesn’t matter.

Stevie Rae reveals that even though Aphrodite is now human, she still has visions. That one sentence could have been the summary of this entire chapter. Just don’t think about that too much.

Even worse, Aphrodite reveals that she’s had her most terrible vision yet.

“I saw vampyres slaughtering humans and humans killing vampyres right back. I saw a world filled with violence and hatred and darkness. And in the darkness I saw creatures that were so horrible, I couldn’t tell what they were. I— I couldn’t even keep looking at them. I saw the end of everything.”

Shit, that sounds bad.

“I saw all of it happening because you were dead, Zoey. Your death made it happen.”

AND YET TOTALLY WORTH IT.

I'm not sure I have words to express how excited this notion makes me, so here's a gif of a dog that seems to come close
I’m not sure I have words to express how excited this notion makes me, so here’s a gif of a dog that seems to come close
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8 comments

  1. Bellomy Reply

    You don’t really care how Aphrodite and Stevie Rae eventually stop fighting, because you know there’s so little character development in this series that they’ll just start fighting again for the same reason anywhere between eight chapters and eight books from now, right?

    So in book time anything from around ten minutes to maybe a day or two.

  2. Jennifer Layton Reply

    So Aphrodite was able to smear her mark with just a wipe of her hand? What if she had started to sweat? Or accidentally bumped her head into something?

    Also, I’ve seen the illustrations of the goddess tattoos on the book covers, and the designs are very intricate. Did she use some kind of template? Now all I can think about is the Simpsons episode where we find out that Marge has templates of her kids’ haircuts in case they have bad hair days.

    How long would it take to draw those designs on her face? If it’s so easy to smear off, is she getting up five hours early to re-draw everything on her face?

    Did the Casts think through any of this? Or do they just not think at all? Why are they doing this to us? Show your work. You have 30 minutes. Begin.

  3. Gee Reply

    Great. So Zoey was just told if she’s not around anymore the entire world will end. Somehow I’m thinking this will not help fix her lack of humbleness.

  4. future venusian Reply

    Oh, God, don’t tell me. The fate of the whole damn world hangs on Zoey’s very existence. If little miss special mcspecial pants dies the world goes up in flames, if she lives it’s a glorious utopia under Nyx’s chosen one.

    I’ve asked this before and I’ll ask it again: what do people see in this crap?

    • wordswithhannah Reply

      You really have to ask why teenagers like a book series where they can imagine the world begins and ends with them?

      (Not being [overly] snarky here – I looooooved “chosen one” stories as a teen, and I’m 99% sure it was for this reason.)

  5. bookbaron Reply

    Totally called that make up mark. I could write this book for them apparently. Not that I’d want to.

    But seriously, why didn’t Zoey think it was make up? That was my first guess. I mean I guess magic- but isn’t make up more plausible than never mind I’m totally not human guys. You just thought I was.

  6. Pingback: The Lazy Reader’s Guide: November 16-November 20, 2015 | Bad Books, Good Times

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