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?
Take Our PollIt’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.