House of Night: Untamed Chapter 16
Zoey and Stevie Rae are finally reunited BFFs! Which means it’s time for them to slut-shame Aphrodite:
“Darius said he’d escort me and Aphrodite. She said she’d keep him busy so that we could talk.”
“Bet that’s a real hardship for her,” Stevie Rae said sarcastically.
“Please— we all know she’s kinda skanky,” I said.
Because even after Zoey spent book #3 getting to second, third-ish, and home base with three different guys, respectively, while Aphrodite hasn’t been involved with a single guy since she was turned down by one in the first book, this is still the only thing that Zoey and Stevie Rae have to talk about. So, character development in House of Night remains as existent as self-awareness.
Rather than explain why this risky secret meeting is even happening at all, the Casts continue to stall with hilarious jokes!
“what were you saying about some news?” I asked […]
“You will not believe it! Kenny Chesney is comin’ in concert to the new BOK Arena!”
*rereads notes* Wait, sorry, that’s actually “with the same joke – singular – that was already tired before it was the only line of dialogue a single character had for three straight books”. Again – character development! So pesky!
“Fine,” she said. “But when I figure out how to get Internet access down in the tunnels so I can get tickets online, do not ask me to get one for you.”
I shook me head [sic] at her. “Computers? Down in the tunnels?”
“Nuns? At Street Cats?” she countered with.
How is everyone still losing their shit over this? Nuns doing charity is the least weird thing that has taken place in this series.
Zoey fills Stevie Rae in on Stark and Stark dying (that was fast!), and asks if she has any insight on if/when he’ll come back as an undead fledgling. Stevie Rae sadly explains that “back then, days didn’t mean anything to me”, but that the only thing she does remember is Neferet feeding her her blood. Which seems like the sort of important detail she should have given Zoey ASAP, but Zoey isn’t bothering to do anything about that whole “Neferet is evil” thing anyway, so whatever, I guess.
Zoey also fills Stevie Rae in on how she was starting to like like Stark. I wonder if even Stevie Rae is getting a little annoyed with Zoey’s weekly boy drama overhauls by this point.
Zoey explains that High High High Priestess (or whatever) Shekinah is at the House of Night now, called off Neferet’s human-vampyre war, and has asked her and the gang to perform a cleansing ceremony, which puts Aphrodite’s no-longer-a-vampyre status in considerable jeopardy. Then something absolutely crazy happens: Zoey realizes something that just last chapter I was wondering why she doesn’t just do at this point.
Just exactly what would be so wrong about Stevie Rae being found out? Not caught hiding and sneakily being part of a ritual, of course, but just found out.
Of course, this is House of Night – which is super super totally okay with gays and just can’t stand homophobia. So, naturally, this immediately becomes a gay joke.
“What if we didn’t hide you? What if we outed you instead?” “Zoey, I love Damien and all, but I’m really not gay.”
…this doesn’t even make sense. If Stevie Rae, a woman, falls in love with a gay guy, that doesn’t make her gay. This is the stupidest sentence I’ve ever written for the blog, and yet this is an actual flawed understanding in this book that I have to explain the problem with right now.
BUT BACK TO SERIOUSLY WHY DON’T THEY JUST REVEAL STEVIE RAE ALREADY.
When she finally spoke, her voice sounded choked. “But they can’t know about me.”
“Why not?” I asked calmly.
“Because if they find out about me, they’ll find out about the others.”
“So?”
“That would be bad,” she said.
“Why?”
Eventually they accept that this makes nothing but sense and we get on with our lives. Also the plot.
“[D]oesn’t it make sense that it’s bad that Neferet is the only adult vamp who knows about you guys?”
Stevie Rae is worried that something could go wrong, because the undead fledglings might not go over so well. Zoey insists that the timing couldn’t be better because the leader of all vampyres will be there for the reveal that Neferet is doing something terrible. Okay, if Zoey’s on board, something’s got to be wrong about this plan. What am I missing?
Stevie Rae reluctantly says she’ll think about Zoey’s plan. Zoey then fills Stevie Rae in on how Erik Night is her new drama teacher and that’s gonna be so awkward.
I shook me head [sic] at her.
Obligatory/arbitrary Room reference of the day: ME UNDERWEARS
Typos nothing! She must be stereotypically Scottish in true Cast fashion. Either that, or she’s secretly a pirate. Which, now that I think about it, sounds pretty amusing. Does anyone want to cue up the One Piece/House of Night crossovers? Or maybe Naruto would be more suitable, seeing as both Naruto and HoN were stretched out waaaaaaaay beyond capacity and had some spectacularly stupid, rushed endings. (No spoilers from me!)
If Stevie Rae, a woman, falls in love with a gay guy, that doesn’t make her gay.
I…I’m sorry? Being gay is now contagious like the common cold? Then you can get AIDS from kissing someone with HIV, obvs. Science!
I can’t decide whether that line alone is better or worse than Delirium‘s whole “love is a diseaaaaaaaaaase :(” shtick. Seriously, going by the Casts’ apparent logic, Taylor Gibson from Christine Love’s visual novel don’t take it personally, babe would be gay. Oh, the implications. I’m torn between laughing and crying with laughter.
Between HoN and Left Behind, I think my Insane Troll Logic quota has been filled up for the next couple of months at least.
All during the HoN series, several commenters on this blog have mentioned how great it would be if Nyx turned out to be a demon, because then having Zoey as her xtra speshul priestess would make more sense. I’m still clinging to hope that will happen. I haven’t read all the books in this series, so I’m letting myself believe.
But reading this bizarre chapter, with its whiplash-inducing changes in conversation and bizarre logic involving gay people, not to mention the total lack of priorities, I have hopes for another twist. These students have all suffered traumatic accidents and don’t remember, and the HoN is actually a special hospital for the brain-damaged. In order to help them cope, the hospital is set up like a school so the kids can wander around from classroom to classroom and have some sense of familiarity. In this particular chapter, the hospital is trying to get them outside to interact with other people again, and since their behavior is still to unpredictable for the general public, they’re having them work with cats instead. That explains their total shock at seeing nuns doing charity work. Their synapses still aren’t firing right.
This is my new favorite fan theory.
“I’m leader of the Dark Daughters!”
“Wow! I bet you are!” meaningful, teary-eyed look at other nun
“What if we didn’t hide you? What if we outed you instead?” “Zoey, I love Damien and all, but I’m really not gay.”
I think that was meant to be another iteration of “I’m not gay… not that there’s anything wrong with gay people,” except worse, because it’s actually, “look, obviously I don’t have a problem with this one, specific gay person, but I’m definitely not gay, myself.”
Wait … Damien is gay?
Sorry. I couldn’t resist. I promise I’ll punch myself in the face.
i totally got Darius and Damian confused for a sec so when they talked about Aphrodite “sluttly” distracting him, i was like, wait I thought Darius was gay?
And now that I think about it I don’t even know who Darius is.
I’m weirdly happy with that