Horsewoman8706 read and liked Celia's review of Marked (House of Night, #1):

"Hmm - I picked this up thinking, "Oh, jolly good, a nice trashy vampire novel to take camping." And oh wow, was it trashy. First red light, "vampyre" - argh. Then, I was drawn into a Gossip Girl world, but at vampire - sorry, v...more Hmm - I picked this up thinking, "Oh, jolly good, a nice trashy vampire novel to take camping." And oh wow, was it trashy. First red light, "vampyre" - argh. Then, I was drawn into a Gossip Girl world, but at vampire - sorry, vampyre - school. And it's such a bad bad attempt at a teenage voice - and written by a mother-daughter duo, dear lord. And the sad thing is, despite its sheer dreadfulness, um, I did kind of want to know what was going to happen next, so I got out the second book in the series too. And read it. Sorry.(less) "

Horsewoman8706 read and liked Diane's review of Marked (House of Night, #1):

"This is disturbing, well written but disturbing. Wiccan-infused, God-hating, religion-bashing Marked/House of Night is a lurid teen tail of Vampiric lore written by a mother & daughter. I can't believe my 13 yo read it. I slogged my way through it ju...more This is disturbing, well written but disturbing. Wiccan-infused, God-hating, religion-bashing Marked/House of Night is a lurid teen tail of Vampiric lore written by a mother & daughter. I can't believe my 13 yo read it. I slogged my way through it just so she and I can discuss it, but I just want to throw it in the trash. Hate it almost as much as Anita Diamant's Red Tent. Both are fairly well-written, and both do a hack job on monotheistic Bible-based religions and do much to glorify and promote paganism. If you're a pagan or into occult, wicca, and/or idolatry this book is for you, or if you're an atheist who likes vampire stories. But if you are one of those "people of faith" maligned wholesale by the authors as "control freaks and pedophiles" then you may find this book repulsive.(less) "

Horsewoman8706 read and liked Melodie's review of Marked (House of Night, #1):

"This book was recommended to me by my niece. I got her started with vampire books sometime back with Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books. And I was the one who introduced her to Twilight. She gave me one of Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy bo...more This book was recommended to me by my niece. I got her started with vampire books sometime back with Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books. And I was the one who introduced her to Twilight. She gave me one of Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy books & I liked it, so figured this series might be okay, too. WRONG!! Others have mentioned the preponderance of pop culture references, which was annoying. However, my main quibbles are with Zoey's "perfectness" and what seemed to me to be a major "Christian bashing". I am not a religious person, but I do believe in God and this book seemed to paint all "People of Faith", as they were referred to in the book, with the "evil-stupid-intolerant" brush. While basically preaching a tolerance of everything else, the "People of Faith" were excluded. Add to this the fact that all the characters seemed terribly one dimensional and the "twins" were a couple of the most annoying characters I've come across in some time, you can be sure I won't bother with any of the others in this series.(less) "