Do you want to hear something crazy? Between the Fifty Shades trilogy, the two Crossfire books, The Host, Hush Hush, our new favorites Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster, and three different Goosebumps books, we’ve built up an impressive little library here at Bad Books, Good Times. Although it’s not “impressive” in the same way that most people would use the word “impressive”. And despite running a bad books blog in the early 2010s, we’ve yet to read a single book about vampires.
Well, you asked for it.
A few weeks back we asked for your suggestions, and we went through them and were immediately entranced by the first book in the House of Night series, Marked. And by “entranced”, we of course mean “couldn’t believe how stupid and awfully written it was”. Plus, we can’t put off a vampire book forever.
Oh, sorry. Vampyres.
Marked
The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird’s world, vampyres have always existed. In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampire – that is, if she makes it through the Change. Not all of those who are chosen do. It’s tough to begin a new life, away from her parents and friends, and on top of that, Zoey finds she is no average fledgling. She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess, Nyx. But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers. When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school’s most elite club, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny – with a little help from her new vampyre friends.
Ariel Says
I didn’t have to read more than a paragraph of the first chapter to know I wanted to write about this book. It starts off the way a fifth grader might begin a story, “I was having a totally normal day when suddenly it was no longer normal.” Is this low hanging fruit? Sure. Do I still want to write about it? Obviously. I mean they spell it vampyre.
I also just spent a half hour looking for a clip from the episode of Buffy “Storyteller” where Andrew is like “Vampyyyyre.” If anyone out there has a clip of this, please do share.
Matthew Says
After our post where we asked for suggestions for our next book, Ariel and I narrowed it down to a few choices, and I poured myself a glass of scotch and sat down with the Amazon previews for the potential new books. I read Marked first, and ran out of scotch. Ariel and I have been doing this blog for something like a year and a half and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much at one of our books.
Plus, vampires! How have we been doing this for a year and a half and never done vampires?
YES. I was really hoping for this or City of Bones. I’ve read sporks of Marked before, and it seriously never gets old.
BTW, I totally just spent fifteen minutes trying to find that stupid clip of Andrew, and I got nothing. How has nobody ever posted that episode intro before? IT’S A CLASSIC.
Just… use your imagination:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdpiu28qb41qh01r8o1_500.gif
I appreciate the effort, and though I’m sad you couldn’t find the clip either, I’m relieved my searching skills aren’t totally lacking.
I will find a way to use that gif in a post. Mark my words!
If I’m not mistaken, the female lead of this novels is the typical Mary-Sue.
I think you’ll do a brilliant job with this book, as usual!
She’s a Mary-Sue who is also an unlikable bitch if the first chapter is any indication! Thank you for the vote of confidence <3
I approve your choice.
The Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz has spoken.
When this book came out I was a school librarian. Some of my 8th grade girls were raving about it, so I read the first 2 or 3 books in the series. This will be a seriously good mock. Good choice.
I didn’t know that! TWIST!
I read like the first seven of these books, I’m so ashamed. They got pretty boring pretty fast
You mean the first chapter of book one wasn’t boring enough for you?? I mean, I guess that’s relief given we have to read the entire thing now that we’ve started.
whoa whoa whoa let’s not throw around words like “entire” so carelessly
I meant entire first book not series!
oh thank god
I’m so sorry I made you think that on Thanksgiving 🙁 This is meant to be a joyous day!
Never heard of it, but anything that refers to “vampyres” instead of “vampires” sounds like a perfect choice for this blog. And if it has a MarySue, it just doubled my interest!! Good job not picking Twilight but still going with the genre. Looking forward to it 🙂
When you wrote ‘vampyre,’ the first thing I thought was the way Andrew said it and excited that i wasn’t the only one. (I’m on the last season of Angel and Andrew has reappeared) I really don’t understand why this clip doesn’t exist. It’s disappointing.
So glad I was not the only one to think that! God, every time he said that I cracked up. Pretty sure I replayed the scene in the kitchen where he’s like, “Spike is a vampyyyyre.” Or whatever happened there. It was amazing.
Also I really need to watch Angel. I tried watching it in parallel with Buffy like I would have if I’d watched the shows when they originally aired, but I was all angsty about Angel leaving Buffy, and I couldn’t get into it. But I hear it’s really good!
Ha, I thought I was the only Buffy fan that hasn’t seen Angel. I’ve been telling myself for years to just watch it all ready, but it just hasn’t happened for whatever reason.
Hahaha, nice choice. This is by far my favorite terrible book. And by favorite I mean, it makes me want to sit in a corner by myself and silently weep for the fate of humanity.
If you ever decide to revisit vampires after this one, you should read the VAMPIRATES series! I have no idea what it’s about, but I saw the title and that was enough for me, haha.
We actually almost did Vampirates as our second book after Fifty Shades of Grey, but when we researched it, it didn’t seem so much “bad” as “pretty much for children”
Yeah, a friend of ours from college recommended it, and based on the title alone we were like, “Oh yeah, this is the next one.” But like Matt said we were sorely disappointed that it was mainly for kids and not at even a Goosebumps level where there was a lot of material to work with.
I was OBSESSED with these books my freshman year of highschool and I recently found out that they were on audible. I started listening to them during the quarantine to bring back some nostalgic memories of when life was simpler. Holy crap they sound way worse than I remember reading them. At first I thought it was maybe just the narrator but honestly the more I think about it, they were always this bad. I can’t stand the main character because of how shallow she is ( even though she constantly refers to OTHERS as shallow ) and her “I’m not like other girls” attitude. I grew up in a similar situation with an asshole religious step dad, a complacent mom, and a fascination for Wicca so I think at the time the books resonated with me but damn. Also Heath sucks, both in his boundary problem and how horribly he was written. The book had an amazing concept with really bad characters and dialogue so I’m disappointed that I can’t see the books the way I did in high school.
Finally, a book I’ve read! I still have a couple of those, but I can’t even remember why I stopped reading them now. I quite liked them in my younger days, but I’m really excited to see you rip them apart.
Hooray! Happy we finally came through for you!
Hehe. Never read this one myself, but I’ve heard a lot of…uh…fun things about it over the years. I look forward to seeing what you two make of it 😀