So does anyone know why this book is called “Chosen” yet? Does anyone know if a single decision has even been made yet?
House of Night: Chosen Chapter 21
After Neferet cast a circle in the last chapter, this chapter sees Zoey… casting a circle.
Zoey tries to assure the reader herself that this won’t take too long.
I was trying to convince myself that this ritual was going to be a snap. I’d just cast a quick circle, offer up prayers for Professor Nolan, announce that Aphrodite was rejoining the Dark Daughters [and] that because of the stress that the school has been dealing with I’ve decided not to Tap any new Prefect Council members till the end of the school year.
Not that I’m an expert on crisis management or anything (which I shouldn’t really have to point out, as the guy who writes for that Fifty Shades blog with the dick jokes), but somehow I feel like maybe tapping new members for the Council could be exactly what the school needs right now? How exactly would recognizing excellence in a community struggling with horrible grief be a bad thing as that community tries to recover and move on? Zoey’s cheating on like three guys right now, and I’m mostly mad at her for using an unspeakable tragedy to cover up procrastinating about picking some fucking prefects.
It really should be an easy ritual, I told my knotted stomach over and over again. Nothing like last month when Stevie Rae died. Nothing that bad could happen tonight.
So the Casts could only have written that to make us expect something bad, right? So we’re supposed to be… tense? That someone might die at the end of the chapter? Cool. I’m pretty pumped to not be surprised by that later.
Zoey and Aphrodite meet up before the circle to discuss the Stevie Rae situation, where Aphrodite points out exactly what we’ve been wondering for the whole damn book:
“I don’t know what the hell you think we’re gonna do,” Aphrodite […] paused and lowered her voice even more. “Plus, I don’t know what you expect to do.”
And then Aphrodite points out exactly what we’ve been wondering if Zoey’s ever going to do for the whole damn book:
“Whatever. Then heal her.”
“Okay, it’s so not that simple.”
“How do you know? Have you tried?”
But wait! We’re not even at PEAK BULLSHIT yet! Because after the antihero asks the hero why she hasn’t just tried doing the thing she’s spent 3/4 of the book talking about needing to do, apparently this was the answer all along???
And I stopped totally dead in my tracks. “What did you just say?”
Aphrodite raised an eyebrow at me, shrugged, and looked utterly bored. “Something like, have you tried?”
“Holy crap! Could it be that easy?”
Guys, I had to reread this dialogue like five times before I finally accepted that Zoey’s not being sarcastic. This is a genuine House of Night-caliber revelation right here: try doing the thing you say you’re gonna do.
“Maybe all I needed to do is just ask Nyx to heal her.”
Maybe all the Casts needed to do was write a second draft of this book.
They go their separate ways to the Dark Daughters ritual. But we have unfinished business here. We have some good fun with fawning over Aphrodite for being the only character in this book with a hint of sense about the inanity that’s going on it it, but let’s not forget that she’s still a character in House of Night and isn’t actually a remotely enjoyable character to read for more than a sentence or two.
[Aphrodite] shot me a curled lip look and said in her stuck-up, rich-girl’s voice, “And no, no one has ever told me it’s rude to keep people waiting. I was raised to keep people waiting. As far as my mother’s concerned, the sun waits for her before it rises and sets.”
I rolled my eyes.
Man, even Zoey’s rolling her eyes at the over-the-top characterization in this book. That’s when you know shit’s gotten bad.
When Aphrodite arrives to take her place in the circle, the other students at the school stop still, so Loren encourages Zoey to quickly begin the ceremony. If only she did, then we could avoid these two interacting further.
“And she’s supposed to be here?” Loren jerked his chin in the direction of Aphrodite.
“Sadly, yes,” I said.
“This should be interesting.”
“That’s me and my life— interesting. As in a isn’t-that-car-wreck-interesting kind of a way.”
Zoey begins the ceremony, showing off her new invisibility powers, which seems like a great idea in front of your enemies who do not know you have invisibility powers. As for the circle itself, you might be asking yourself, dang, after three books and a kajillion zillion circles, how could the Casts possibly keep these things interesting? What if… Zoey improvised the order in which she spoke or lit the candles????
Deciding to go with the special sense of priestess magic I was feeling, I began the invocation without lifting the lighter.
What? Not doing it for you? Madness! What if… ok, that’s about it. There is nothing new to see here. Even when Zoey lights Aphrodite’s earth candle and announces “Yes, Aphrodite has earth powers now”, there is somehow nothing new about any of this. But there’s some pretty great shit if you suppress the instinct to skim Zoey’s poetry:
“Sight of the cat
Hearing of the dolphin
Speed of the snake
Mystery of the phoenix
I’m just gonna say what we’re all thinking: House of Night would have been a thousand times better if it were all poetry.
And then Erik starts dying. See you next week to see if he’s dead or not!
We have some good fun with fawning over Aphrodite for being the only character in this book with a hint of sense about the inanity that’s going on in it…
THAT’S IT. I was trying to figure out why Aphrodite seemed to be the most w-drawn character, because she’s clearly an over-the-top stereotype, and a poorly written one.
But I think you nailed it. It’s that Aphrodite is the only person besides the reader who gets any sense of how stupid Zoe is. When the Casts try to make her act bitchy what they’re really doing, at least a lot of the time, is having her say what the reader is thinking, except possibly a bit ruder than we might have told Zoe in person.
This has the, from their perspective, unfortunate effect of having the bitchy things the bitchy character says to be a bitch actually come out sounding like reasonable complaints. Bad for the Casts…good for us.
“And she’s supposed to be here?” Loren jerked his chin in the direction of Aphrodite.
“Sadly, yes,” I said.
“This should be interesting.”
“That’s me and my life— interesting. As in a isn’t-that-car-wreck-interesting kind of a way.”
“Haha, yeah, my life sucks so much, amirite?” she said to her third boyfriend in front of her second boyfriend before she used her magical powers to lead a group of less magical people in performing spells designed to manipulate the laws of nature. “I mean, my life is like a trainwreck!”
Pretty much! Aphrodite is a very unintentional audience surrogate and it does wonderful things.
The last line of this post….perfection.
(Looking bleary-eyed up from my bottle of bourbon)
Why is the book called Chosen, you ask? I was young and innocent and new to this series once, and I asked that very question. Then I got to the chapter that you are approaching.
(shuddering, taking a swig of bourbon)
Zoey will choose. She will make one of the stupidest choices even for her. And this series will get disturbing real quick. Teachers wrote this. Public school teachers.
You think you know fear, boy? (bitter laugh) You know nothing. You kids today with your blogs and books and England and birthdays and good times and obsessive stalkers posing as love interests … why back in my day we PLAYED OUTSIDE instead of reading what you’re about to read. Yes, we got stung by bees and hit by cars (chugging from the bottle) … that was a particularly bad day. But I’d CHOOSE to get hit by a hundred more cars if it could take the memory of Zoey’s upcoming decision away from me.
(iPhone beeps)
Oh right … it’s time for my pills …
You, ma’am, are amazing. claps
This is incredible. I have no words. Only laughter.
We also learned what’s happening next a week or two ago. Get terrified for next week?
I can’t believe I only just saw this post today…what an amazing Saturday morning!
What’s even worse is that I was flipping the fuck out over what happens next chapter, but I started reading the next book, and basically everything is back to normal in like five minutes and Zoey is just like, “Yeesh! That was cray.” LIKE IT DOESN’T EVEN CHANGE HER AT ALL.
I’m so looking forward to seeing how Zoey makes Erik’s death (or undeath?) all about her.
I’m thinking she’ll either be relieved that she no longer has to come up with a way to break up with him, or she’ll start lamenting about how he was her one true love and she must try to find a way through this cruel, cruel world with half of her soul missing.
Oh, and she’ll probably cast another circle at some point.
“He was my third favourite boyfriend! But the one I knew I should have loved the most, and he was soooo good looking. HIS DEATH WILL AFFECT ME GREATLY UNTIL I FIND YET ANOTHER A NEW BOYFRIEND.”
Or until I sleep with my teacher, I guess.