House of Night (Hunted) Chapter 25: Zoey Pretends School Matters Anymore

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House of Night (Hunted): Chapter 25

Zoey wakes up to find that Stark has kept his promise and left at some point before she woke up. Which kind of raises the question why she wasn’t vulnerable to Kalona since whenever he left, but I guess if you’re actually going with a plot contrivance like “oh, uh, the bad guy can invade your dreams unless you’re sharing a bed and cuddling with someone you’re attracted to”, that really lowers the bar for what plot holes you care about.

Zoey finds that while Stark is gone, he’s left behind an arrow, snapped in half. Don’t worry if the symbolism of this escapes you. The Casts helpfully explain it in excruciating detail.

I found the arrow lying on the pillow beside me. He’d broken it in half, which immediately caught my attention. I mean, I’m from a town named Broken Arrow. I know what the symbolism of an arrow snapped in half means— peace

PRO WRITING TIP: If you’re not writing a book for literal babies, you can probably assume the reader knows what the symbolism means too. ALSO A PRO WRITING TIP: A book for literal babies should probably be less horny.

Stark has also left a generic-as-fuck “I watched you while you were sleeping” note, which is only worth mentioning because of how hilariously angsty it is:

you looked completely at peace. I wish I could feel that. I wish I could close my eyes and feel at peace. But I can’t.

Zoey goes to the cafeteria for breakfast, and the Casts continue to see if they can write an entire chapter in cliche.

“Yeah, observe the pod people,” Shaunee whispered. […]
At first I really didn’t notice much of anything […] then I realized that it wasn’t what I was seeing that was weird – it was what I wasn’t.

Zoey and the twins notice that every student is in a blissful haze, not talking or doing “the typical joking around going on where someone makes fun of someone else’s hair and then someone else tells her to tell her mom to be quiet”, which is actually an example of normal human behavior this book went with.

The twins mention that Stark was around earlier, acting like he owned the place and ignoring everyone around him. So, naturally, Stark immediately shows up and starts talking to Zoey, because House of Night is like a horror movie that can’t figure out anything other than jump scares, except with how characters enter scenes. Stark gets darkly aggressive whenever the twins try to talk to him, but has some flirty banter with Zoey. Or at least what counts for flirty in House of Night.

“I just found this. It’s yours, isn’t it?” He lifted his hand and, clenched in it, was my purse. […]
“Thanks, it is mine.” I took it from him, and as our hands brushed I said, “A guy once told me that girls’ purses reminded him of spiders.” […]
“Spiders? Are you sure you heard him right?”

Or maybe Stark’s just confused that “purses remind me of spiders” is actual dialogue he had last chapter. That’s fair. I’m confused too.

Stark leaves, and the Twins ask Zoey if he’s acting how Stevie Rae acted before she Changed into a red vampyre. Zoey confirms, and asks if they noticed anything weird about Stark, “like a weird rippling or an extra-dark shadow”, because House of Night is really going with this thing where characters figuratively surrounded by darkness are also literally surrounded by darkness.

“Hey, seriously, I know what Kramisha’s poem said and all,” Erin said. “But you gotta watch yourself around him. He’s totally bad news.”
“Plus, the poem might not have been about him,” Shaunee said.
“Guys, do we really have to talk about this right now?” I said after swallowing.
“Nope, he has zero importance to us,” Shaunee said quickly.

I love how often the characters in House of Night accidentally have the sickest self-owns about the characters in House of Night.

Now, I have some rather shocking information to tell you: we’re about three-quarters of the way through Hunted, somehow. This is sort of astounding because – even by Bad Books, Good Times standards – so little has happened in this book. And what little has happened has been remarkably questionable in terms of narrative structure. After four books at vampire boarding school and build-up to a secret villain’s secret plan, the first book after that secret plan has changed the entire course of the narrative has decided to… go away from it. For half the book. We spent half the book in a different place, not dealing with any of the plot’s conflicts. It’s a strange choice and does fucking nothing for narrative pacing, but it’s where we’re at now. Because now that we are back where the story should be happening… there’s actually here anymore.

In other words, the rest of this chapter is Zoey going to class.

For some reason, after half a book telling us that the House of Night isn’t where the story actually takes place anymore, we’re now supposed to think that Zoey going to her classes matters. And it is worth pointing out that even in the previous four books, Zoey went to class maybe like eight times. So the actual “school” part of Zoey’s Adventures in Vampire School has never really mattered to begin with. And now that she’s explicitly said she wants to leave the House of Night immediately because the world is ending?

It. Is. Nonsense.

It didn’t help that my schedule had been changed around at semester

What is up with the passage of time in these books? She’s been at this fucking school for like two months.

I waited for Professor Penthasilea, better known as Prof P, to assign a piece of literature with a correspondingly awful essay that was so far over my head that it could roost.

ZOEY, YOU ARE PLANNING TO LEAVE THE SCHOOL TODAY. I think you don’t have to worry about writing an essay? Why does Zoey give a shit about this? Why is the reader supposed to give a shit about what her professor’s nickname is?

[She instead] began the hour by passing out grammar worksheets. […] One thing I could say for Hell High (as human kids called it)

Since when?

was that the classes were not boring. [But] her charisma in class today would definitely fall on the South Intermediate High School crap teacher scale at about the level of Mrs. Fosster, who consistently got the prize for the Worst English Teacher Ever, and had been called Queen of Worksheets or Umpa Lumpa, depending on whether she was wearing her M& M blue muumuu or not.

So I get what this chapter is trying to do, and, sure, it is important to explain how Kalona has changed the vampyres at House of Night. Or at least it was important at the start of the book before we spent half the time in the tunnels. Now we’re at the point where a teacher we’ve never met and have no reason to care about is being compared to another teacher we’ve never met and have no reason to care about. And it wraps up with a tacky body-shaming joke, because my GOD House of Night is a dumpster fire.

And Hunted can’t even figure out how to be consistent about how the vampyres have changed under Kalona’s influence. The fledglings are all spacey and boring now. The english professor is spacey and boring now.

Now [my Spanish professor] looked and acted like a neurotic sparrow, flitting from kid to kid and getting ready to have a nervous breakdown.
Pod professor number two.

EXCEPT THAT’S THE OPPOSITE OF HOW THE OTHER “POD” PEOPLE ARE DESCRIBED? Hell, this makes it sound like she’s actually resisting Kalona’s influences and the pressure is making her crack! She sounds more like a potential ally to reach out to! House of Night, please figure out how characterization works.

Zoey’s third class of the day is Advanced Vampyre Sociology, taught by none other than Neferet. Zoey narrates a bit about how she feels behind in all her classes because she got bumped up to advanced classes as soon as her special gifts started manifesting themselves. She doesn’t mention that maybe it also has something to do with how it doesn’t seem like she’s ever gone to the same class twice, because House of Night.

Neferet’s lesson today is on vampyres’ cloaking ability, which is an inherent ability to “conceal their movements from the inadequate senses of the typical human”. Which isn’t even sociology, because of course it fucking isn’t.

“[Zoey,] why don’t you read aloud the last paragraph on that page?”
Glad that I had an excuse to duck my face, I looked down at my book, found the paragraph, and read:
Fledglings should note that cloaking can be very taxing to their strength. It takes great powers of concentration to call and hold night for any protracted period of time. […] Cloaking can only work with organic things, which is why it is easier to remain cloaked if one is skyclad (or naked). To attempt cloaking items like cars or motorcycles or even bicycles is an exercise in futility.

Why would Neferet tell Zoey that her plan to sneak away isn’t going to work? Why wouldn’t she just let her fail because Zoey (and, for some reason, Darius) doesn’t know the logistical impossibility of her plan, and then catch her in her insubordination? Why is Neferet so bad at being a villain?

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