And, oh, is it a thing to see.
Chapter 19
Zoey begins by summarizing the previous chapter, which is such a frequent happening in House of Night that I kind of wonder if you could read one of these books just by reading the first paragraph of each chapter.
Yep, I was seriously messed up. Not only had I not broken up with Heath, but I had probably made our Imprint even stronger. Plus, I may have caused two men to be killed. […] I’d been drinking Heath’s blood and having a horny old good time (jeesh, I was becoming such a ho-bag)
Can we all pause for a second and appreciate the phrase “horny old good time”? Use it in an email today!
Did vamps freak when the human they’d Imprinted was threatened? […] I was starting to see that there was lots of stuff the oh-so-educational textbook had left out. What I needed was an adult vamp. Fortunately, I knew one I was sure would be very happy to volunteer to be my teacher.
I’m sure there were lots of things he’d be ever so pleased to teach me.
Guys, I’m running out of things to say about how unsettling the whole Zoey-Loren thing is. And just in case this is the first time you’ve ever read this blog and you’re not sure what this is, I don’t mean unsettling like a Steven King book, but unsettling like Dr. Seuss writing a Steven King book in the style of Dr. Seuss.
Zoey continues to explain her boy problems, as though they have been particularly unclear:
There was no denying that Loren and I had a thing. It was different than the thing Heath and I had, and even different than the thing Erik and I had. Crap. I had too many things going on in my life.
If you swap out the word “life” for “plot”, it still works!
Zoey resumes her journey to Aphrodite’s parents’ house to deliver blood to undead Stevie Rae, traveling in a “horny, power-filled, yet confused haze”. I don’t even have jokes about Horny Zoey. She’s my new favorite character.
Stevie Rae snatched the canvas bag I was dangling in her direction. “[You shouldn’t] sneak up on me. It could be dangerous.”
I sighed and sat on the couch […] “If you ate me the way my life sucks right now, you’d be doing me a favor.”
Even when the Casts want to call Zoey out on her shit, they struggle with doing so coherently:
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” [Stevie Rae said.] “Real awful, unlike the stress of being dead and then undead but still feeling mostly dead.”
How was being dead stressful?
Zoey fills Stevie Rae in on the plot (again!), which contains more useful examples for how not to tell stories. First, the Casts’ recap jumps to conclusions that the original occurrence didn’t really develop:
“Professor Nola was killed last night. It looks like some of the People of Faith crucified her […] I think that my step-loser might be involved, but I can’t say anything about it because my mom is covering for him”
How exactly does Zoey already know that she’s covering for him, as opposed to, say, she just doesn’t know? Although this probably isn’t as bad as example #2, which is the ever important “don’t be racist” example:
“I just sucked Heath’s blood and got interrupted by some gang wannabes”
Remember how earlier this month there was that scandal where the current writer of the James Bond novels said that Idris Elba was “too street” to be James Bond, and the world immediately went, “Yeah, we know that you mean something else”? Or all that conversation earlier this year about the media’s usage of the word “thugs” when reporting on protesters sounded like some other word was meant? Same kind of thing applies here.
Zoey tells Stevie Rae that she might have killed some people, and also that she and Loren have been making out. Stevie Rae asks Zoey about making out with Loren.
“I think we might really have something together.”
“Just like Romeo and Juliet,” she said between swallows.
“Uh, Stevie Rae, let’s use a different analogy, shall we? R& J didn’t end so well.”
“Whereas my thing where I’m an underage high school student making out with my teacher who is also a national figure will probably go pretty ok.”
Zoey explains that it might be hard to get blood to Stevie Rae with the heightened security. Stevie Rae freaks out, because she knows she’s in really bad shape and explains that she can feel her remaining humanity slipping away. Zoey comforts her in the only way Zoey knows how:
“You’re better. I’m here now.”
Zoey continues to assure Stevie Rae, who lives in fear of her unyielding slide into madness, that everything will work out, because Zoey will always be her BFF.
“Your humanity is still there, inside you. Yeah, it might be getting buried, but it’s still there. And that means we’re still best friends.”
I dunno, man. Forcibly being a feral, mindless beast for all eternity is kinda sounding like a better option than forcibly being Zoey’s friend for all eternity.
Stevie Rae is somehow not swayed by Zoey’s assurances that she’s going to be fine because Zoey, and asks her, no, really, how are you really going to help?
It’s the one it always is.
“I’m going to cast a circle and ask for Nyx’s help.”
Zoey is confident in a plan that will work because the gods/because Zoey.
Stevie Rae blinked. “That’s it?”
“Well, our circle is powerful and Nyx is a goddess. What more do we need?”
I feel like that question was rhetorical, but I have so many goddamn notes about this by this point.
“Wow, friend who is literally dead and also turning into a horrible monster, my life sucks! Not only do three hot boys like me, I am also the most powerful vampire in my school and somehow have several extremely loyal friends! You, my friend who actually, literally died and became a zombie, would just not understand the Hell that is my life!”
Love, Zoey
I loved pretty much everything about this blog post. Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing it. 🙂
I keep hearing Ryan Lochte’s “Jeah!” nonsense every time Zoey tries to express exasperation. In other news, I’m getting more and more freaked out by what kind of mother Mama Cast must be to live out some seriously disturbed fantasies through Zoey, who is no doubt an “idealized” version of her daughter. These people need help more than they need an editor, and that is saying something.
Stevie Rae just became my new favourite character.
“That’s it?” was just what I was thinking! Even the characters have no faith in Zoey’s magical circles. Why doesn’t she just call on spirit, like she does wind, and have it bring forth Stevie Rae’s soul? Would probably save us a couple of useless chapters, if not entire books!
I thought this whole time Stevie Rae was just meant to be sitting around remembering her affinity for Earth? Zoey’s plans are just so lame.
Can we even really call them plans? If it’s not solved by a circle or an affinity, Zoey’s got nothing.
I’m kind of wondering if those people Zoe killed were some of Cast Sr.’s students. Really hoping they aren’t.
Here’s what kills me about Zoey. About ten years ago, I was caught up in worries about whether my co-workers were gossiping about me and thinking my boyfriend wasn’t paying enough attention to me — things that really had me stressed out.
Then I got into a car accident. The injuries were not life-threatening (everyone was able to walk away), but the accident was my fault and a terrifying thing to experience. After that, everything snapped into perspective. Worrying about my fragile ego seemed so incredibly stupid. My whole outlook was shaken up for a long time. Don’t get me wrong; I got over it. I’m now back to obsessing over why it takes so long for my best friend to text me back.
But here’s the thing. Yes, Zoey is a typical boy-crazy teen. Then her (alleged) best friend sort-of dies and turns into this demonic being. Then she stumbles upon the grisly murder scene of one of her own professors, and shortly afterwards, she commits her first double-homicide.
NONE of those events takes top priority on her mental radar. She is still obsessing over her boyfriend situation. There is no contemplation of the sudden threat to a vampire’s mortality (I refuse to spell it wyth that stupyd y). There is no sudden shock of realizing that she’s been wasting time worrying about boys when she dealing with so much violence and death. No depression from the shock or even doubt about what the hell kind of goddess Nyx actually is.
(And I’m sorry, Nyx sounds like the breakfast cereal Kix, so every time I hear her name, I think “Nyx! Kid-tested, mother-approved!”)
Human beings are writing this book and expecting me to identify with Zoey. No. Zoey is Satan. And the fact that Nyx is on her side means that all the humans in this story need to start wearing clothes made out of garlic and beaming million-watt sun lamps through the House of Night windows.
OK. I’m done. I’m going to eat Chee-tos and drink root beer until I feel better.
” If you swap out the word “life” for “plot”, it still works!”
Wait, since when does this book have a plot?!
Also, god, chapter 19 already? I feel like literally nothing has actually happened in this book other than professor Nolan getting killed and Zoey murdering two guys and also getting bad birthday presents.
Actually, one more thing is about to happen. I’ve been waiting for BBGT to get to it all series. It will make every moronic thing we’ve read up to this point look like a public library story time reading of Little House on the Prairie.
Omg omg omg. I read ahead (I’m actually in the middle of Untamed now for some reason.) IT DID MAKE EVERYTHING LOOK LIKE PUBLIC LIBRARY STORY TIME READING OF LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. Which is also once of the greatest sentences I have ever read.
I was actually pretty surprised with the direction the book took. I mean as the end got closer I started to figure it out because I’m not completely oblivious, but as Matt pointed out to me, Zoey is such a fulfilment character that you don’t often question what’s happening to her. Obviously I’ll be talking more about this when it comes up in the posts, but damn even though I hate Zoey, I felt bad for her.
Oh, I know. These books do always take forever for anything to actually happen, though.
“I don’t mean unsettling like a Steven King book, but unsettling like Dr. Seuss writing a Steven King book in the style of Dr. Seuss.”
We planted the bodies like seeds in a pot.
We planted the dog, and the cat, and the tot,
and we thought, “Why not? This way, they won’t rot!”
Well, in fact, they came back, but we wish they had not.
— Dr. Seuss’s Pet Sematary
This is masterfully done
http://justanotherfacet.tumblr.com/post/116543936481/squeakykins-ineffably-crowley-did-you-just
That thought makes this pic infinitely scarier. (Also, happy super belated birthday, I hope yours was excellent.)