rachaelarsenault's review
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
I’m having a hard time figuring out what to say about this book because it honestly seemed… kind of pointless? The only way I can think to explain it is going to involve a lot of SPOILERS. You’ve been warned.
So, we open with a dream where Kalona gives Zoey a warning, and then we learn Kramisha has written a poem and, later, Aphrodite has a vision. These are three things that have not happened for almost a year. This all leads to Zoey and her friends performing a protection ritual to keep Neferet entombed, which naturally goes wrong and opens a portal to an alternate world.
That’s our build up. That’s what sets everything in motion. So far so good – this seems like a reasonably okay way to open a book (though the actual execution leaves a lot to be desired, but I digress).
Then we have the introduction of our core conflicts: Jack is back but he’s a flesh-eating, bloodthirsty, zombie-making red fledgling, though he wants to be fixed and remain in Zoey’s world so he can be with Damien again. Also, the other red fledglings and vampyres brought through the portal are going to start a zombie apocalypse in Tulsa if Zoey and her friends don’t stop them. Another subplot is Aphrodite’s spirally addiction and her mother’s political plot against vampyres.
Okay, so we have three core conflicts, all of which are at least tangentially related to each other, since Aphrodite’s mom is bitten by one of the Other vampyres (which will kill her and turn her into a zombie) and she takes Zoey and friends accidentally opening the portal as a sign of vampiric ill-will toward humans. Our resolution needs to fix Jack so he and Damien can be together again, stop the Other vampyres from destroying Tulsa, and help Aphrodite overcome her addiction while also putting her mother in her place and preventing her from gaining political power to oppress vampyres.
So Aphrodite cries in Nyx’s Temple, has a very sudden epiphany about her mother and just… sobers up and moves on from her trauma, and as a reward Nyx Marks her as a new kind of vampyre and restores the humanity of all the Other vampyres and fledglings, while also healing Aphrodite’s mom so she doesn’t die from her vampyre bite. This not only resolves Aphrodite’s subplot very gracelessly, but magically fixes Jack and stops the Other fledglings and vampyres from starting a zombie apocalypse. So… All the conflicts are resolved in one scene that involves no problem-solving, no agency, no real growth or overcoming challenges. Aphrodite just sort of decides to stop being affected by her mother’s abuse and presto! Everything else is fixed.
And yet there are still eighty pages left of the book at this point.
I should mention the other subplot that was kinda loosely introduced prior to this: Zoey’s brother, Kevin, also came through the portal. The problem with this subplot is that Kevin has literally zero presence in the original series – not a single appearance or line of dialogue – and there’s no real time to establish his character or show his bonds to other characters before we’re expected to care about him.
And, yeah, we’re expected to care very quickly. He has one short scene before Aphrodite fixes everything and that’s it. He becomes prominent to the book after that, and by that point we’re expected to be really invested in him and really care when Zoey recognizes him and orders the TPD not to shoot him or the vampyres with him. But Zoey has never cared about her brother prior to this – she’s barely ever thought of him. So introducing an entirely new plot that hinges on her and her friends searching for her brother and fearing for his safety after you’ve already resolved the three core conflicts of the book is just… annoying.
It’s also a huge waste of time. A chapter from Kevin’s perspective tells us that he and his surviving men plan to go to the Tulsa HoN at sundown because he, too, recognized Zoey and is hopeful when he realizes that she’s a High Priestess. So the near 20 pages we spend with Zoey worrying about him and searching for him is all just a pointless headache. Nothing of consequence happens, and readers already know Kevin isn’t going to seek her out peacefully anyway.
Then we spend the rest of the book getting infodumps about how Kevin’s world is different from Zoey’s, along with the realization that he’s his world’s Zoey (AKA the Chosen One) and he has to go back. It’s supposed to be a heartbreaking scene when they send him back over, but… I’ve been given no reason to care about him. I’ve been given no reason to care about his relationships with the other characters.
So we had three core conflicts that were solved suddenly, effortlessly, and nonsensically, and then we had a new conflict that made no sense, carried no weight, and just kinda dragged on for no real reason. And they weren’t even good conflicts!
Let’s start with Jack and Damien. First problem: In order to make Other Jack have motivation to want to stay in Zoey’s world, Other Damien has to be dead. Rather than have him simply reject the Change or die in the war or something, the authors decided that Damien needed to have an Issues Subplot, so Other Damien committed suicide because Damien has apparently been depressed his whole life. It was never shown in previous books because he masks it very well – and by that, I mean the authors only just now thought to introduce this personal conflict to the books. Now, this isn’t a problem in and of itself; there are plenty of people who mask mental illness extremely well and never have friends or family pick up on it. That’s fine. The problem is that then Grandma Redbird randomly swoops in, immediately deduces that he’s depressed – sorry, I mean that his “spirit weeps” – and tells him that he needs to choose to embrace joy, or else he will either die or live a life of misery. She then says a bastardized Cherokee prayer to help “heal” his depression.
There are A LOT of problems with how this particular issue is handled. First, that Grandma Redbird knows Damien has depression at all, since the only justification the authors give for it essentially amounts to: “Well, Native Americans are wise and magical and just know things about people sometimes.” This is an ongoing problem with Grandma Redbird’s character, but that doesn’t make it any less offensive or infuriating. Second, the authors have Grandma approach Damien with this advice unsolicited. He is not seeking advice or support or therapy. Grandma just gives it to him. Third, this is presented as, like, the true and good and perfect solution to depression. Just embrace joy! The only reason you’re depressed is because you’re too afraid to let yourself live your life fully because it opens you up to heartbreak and failure. And while I’m sure this is true of some people’s experiences, I’m not sure that’s true of Damien, whose depression is canonically something he’s struggled with for years and which stems from neglect and homophobia he faced from his family and community. Learning to cope with that is a little more complicated than just “embracing joy”. Fourth, the fact that they use language about “healing” depression at all, and especially because they use ~*Cherokee magic*~ to speed along the process. Cherokee spiritualism and religious beliefs are not mystical and magical, and constantly presenting them as such is super offensive. Moreover, you don’t heal from mental illness. It’s always there. Instead, you cope and grow and learn how to thrive in spite of it.
Also, the conclusion to Damien’s depression subplot is basically the same as the conclusion to Jack’s quest to have his humanity restored and Aphrodite’s struggle to overcome her addiction and mother-daughter conflict: He does nothing and it magically goes away. More specifically, he falls asleep in Jack’s room and wakes up to find Jack healed. And from then on his depression is never so much as hinted at.
Let’s look at Aphrodite’s subplot a little more now. This is, as I’m sure you guessed, another Issues Subplot. Aphrodite drinks too much and likes to pop Xanax. She’s an addict, and this is specifically tied to her abusive and neglectful upbringing. This, in theory, makes perfect sense. The problem is the execution (as always). For one, even though Aphrodite is constantly drinking and at one point pops two Xanax pills in one go, we never see her intoxicated except in one pivotal scene. She always seems perfectly coherent and normal. And when we do reach that pivotal scene where she’s actually behaving like a highly intoxicated person, the other characters’ responses are awful. Especially Zoey’s. See, Zoey decides the appropriate way to react to Aphrodite’s drunkenness is to yell at her, throw away her flask, and grab her by the shoulders and violently shake her, which is all followed up by using her position as High Priestess to order Aphrodite into sobriety.
Here’s the thing: Zoey knows that Aphrodite has gotten wasted after visiting her mom in the hospital, she knows Aphrodite’s mom is dying, and she knows that Aphrodite’s mom is a core source of her trauma. She also knows that Aphrodite’s mom’s main methods of abuse are yelling at Aphrodite, hitting her, and trying to control her – three things that Zoey does in this very scene. But Zoey is never presented as being in the wrong for this. Instead, Aphrodite is the one who apologizes to Zoey later when she has sobered up. It’s a really, really awful, insensitive, and just completely clueless representation of dealing with addiction.
The way Aphrodite “heals” doesn’t help matters, either, since she essentially just decides to get over her mother’s abuse, in much the same way that Damien just sort of decides to stop being depressed. It implies that mental illness and addiction are mind-over-matter issues rather than complex conditions influenced by upbringing, oppression, and the socio-political environment people exist under.
I know I’ve already rambled on for a long time, but I still have barely touched on all the major problems in this book. I’m serious. It’s that bad. To save myself and everyone else some time, here’s the highlights reel of awful, so to speak:
->The rampant nepotism of the North American Vampyre High Council just being Zoey and a bunch of her friends.
->Damien and Stevie Rae abandoning their posts at their own HoNs after less than a year, but not actually having to step down from their positions on the Council. Because, again, nepotism.
->Shaylin and Nicole go to San Francisco because it’s gay. Damien goes to New York, which is also a massive hub of queer culture and important historical landmark for Pride. Shaunee goes to New Orleans, which is known for being a hub of black culture. Stevie Rae is the only one who doesn’t go to her own Stereotypes Land.
->The ritual Shaylin talks about casting for the opening of the San Francisco HoN made all the women present start making out with each other, including all the straight women. It’s portrayed as funny, but it’s extremely creepy.
->The authors completely misuse the term “black girl magic” and also have Erik utter the words “Nubian princess” in reference to Shaunee.
->There is still plenty of sex shaming and body policing in this book. Even Erin, who doesn’t appear in this book, is brought up just so she can be called a slut.
->Why is it called the Other World? The Otherworld already exists in this series – it’s Nyx’s realm. Could the authors not think of any other term for their alternate dimension?
->The pre-story text claims that Shaylin has a “special maturity” because she used to be blind, which is some seriously ableist BS. Disability does not make you wiser or more mature and it isn’t uplifting or empowering to imply otherwise.
->Zoey makes really weird, selfish changes to rules at the HoN, like Spaghetti Madness on Tuesdays because it’s her favourite meal and relaxing the dress code because she wants to lounge around in sweatpants and a ponytail. This doesn’t do much to convince me that she’s a wise and responsible leader in spite of her young age.
->The requisite terrible poetry. I mean, there’s a prophetic poem in this book, but I genuinely have no idea what it was predicting. Maybe the theme of the book? Or just that it was going to snow? It doesn’t end up actually contributing anything to the plot, and it isn’t even a good poem in the first place.
->Frances LaFont’s whole political campaign makes no sense, especially since it’s trying to parallel real world politics. Vampyres can’t be a stand-in for Mexican and Muslim immigrants and other people of colour suffering under the Trump administration because they’re the elite. They are the richest and most powerful people in Zoey’s world – the mayor of Tulsa can’t do anything to them.
->The fact that the authors double down on this political parallel by comparing Frances LaFont’s prejudice against vampyres TO THE HOLOCAUST
->An unending amount of just really bad dialogue.
And I’ll stop there, because if I don’t, I’ll be here all day.
So, we open with a dream where Kalona gives Zoey a warning, and then we learn Kramisha has written a poem and, later, Aphrodite has a vision. These are three things that have not happened for almost a year. This all leads to Zoey and her friends performing a protection ritual to keep Neferet entombed, which naturally goes wrong and opens a portal to an alternate world.
That’s our build up. That’s what sets everything in motion. So far so good – this seems like a reasonably okay way to open a book (though the actual execution leaves a lot to be desired, but I digress).
Then we have the introduction of our core conflicts: Jack is back but he’s a flesh-eating, bloodthirsty, zombie-making red fledgling, though he wants to be fixed and remain in Zoey’s world so he can be with Damien again. Also, the other red fledglings and vampyres brought through the portal are going to start a zombie apocalypse in Tulsa if Zoey and her friends don’t stop them. Another subplot is Aphrodite’s spirally addiction and her mother’s political plot against vampyres.
Okay, so we have three core conflicts, all of which are at least tangentially related to each other, since Aphrodite’s mom is bitten by one of the Other vampyres (which will kill her and turn her into a zombie) and she takes Zoey and friends accidentally opening the portal as a sign of vampiric ill-will toward humans. Our resolution needs to fix Jack so he and Damien can be together again, stop the Other vampyres from destroying Tulsa, and help Aphrodite overcome her addiction while also putting her mother in her place and preventing her from gaining political power to oppress vampyres.
So Aphrodite cries in Nyx’s Temple, has a very sudden epiphany about her mother and just… sobers up and moves on from her trauma, and as a reward Nyx Marks her as a new kind of vampyre and restores the humanity of all the Other vampyres and fledglings, while also healing Aphrodite’s mom so she doesn’t die from her vampyre bite. This not only resolves Aphrodite’s subplot very gracelessly, but magically fixes Jack and stops the Other fledglings and vampyres from starting a zombie apocalypse. So… All the conflicts are resolved in one scene that involves no problem-solving, no agency, no real growth or overcoming challenges. Aphrodite just sort of decides to stop being affected by her mother’s abuse and presto! Everything else is fixed.
And yet there are still eighty pages left of the book at this point.
I should mention the other subplot that was kinda loosely introduced prior to this: Zoey’s brother, Kevin, also came through the portal. The problem with this subplot is that Kevin has literally zero presence in the original series – not a single appearance or line of dialogue – and there’s no real time to establish his character or show his bonds to other characters before we’re expected to care about him.
And, yeah, we’re expected to care very quickly. He has one short scene before Aphrodite fixes everything and that’s it. He becomes prominent to the book after that, and by that point we’re expected to be really invested in him and really care when Zoey recognizes him and orders the TPD not to shoot him or the vampyres with him. But Zoey has never cared about her brother prior to this – she’s barely ever thought of him. So introducing an entirely new plot that hinges on her and her friends searching for her brother and fearing for his safety after you’ve already resolved the three core conflicts of the book is just… annoying.
It’s also a huge waste of time. A chapter from Kevin’s perspective tells us that he and his surviving men plan to go to the Tulsa HoN at sundown because he, too, recognized Zoey and is hopeful when he realizes that she’s a High Priestess. So the near 20 pages we spend with Zoey worrying about him and searching for him is all just a pointless headache. Nothing of consequence happens, and readers already know Kevin isn’t going to seek her out peacefully anyway.
Then we spend the rest of the book getting infodumps about how Kevin’s world is different from Zoey’s, along with the realization that he’s his world’s Zoey (AKA the Chosen One) and he has to go back. It’s supposed to be a heartbreaking scene when they send him back over, but… I’ve been given no reason to care about him. I’ve been given no reason to care about his relationships with the other characters.
So we had three core conflicts that were solved suddenly, effortlessly, and nonsensically, and then we had a new conflict that made no sense, carried no weight, and just kinda dragged on for no real reason. And they weren’t even good conflicts!
Let’s start with Jack and Damien. First problem: In order to make Other Jack have motivation to want to stay in Zoey’s world, Other Damien has to be dead. Rather than have him simply reject the Change or die in the war or something, the authors decided that Damien needed to have an Issues Subplot, so Other Damien committed suicide because Damien has apparently been depressed his whole life. It was never shown in previous books because he masks it very well – and by that, I mean the authors only just now thought to introduce this personal conflict to the books. Now, this isn’t a problem in and of itself; there are plenty of people who mask mental illness extremely well and never have friends or family pick up on it. That’s fine. The problem is that then Grandma Redbird randomly swoops in, immediately deduces that he’s depressed – sorry, I mean that his “spirit weeps” – and tells him that he needs to choose to embrace joy, or else he will either die or live a life of misery. She then says a bastardized Cherokee prayer to help “heal” his depression.
There are A LOT of problems with how this particular issue is handled. First, that Grandma Redbird knows Damien has depression at all, since the only justification the authors give for it essentially amounts to: “Well, Native Americans are wise and magical and just know things about people sometimes.” This is an ongoing problem with Grandma Redbird’s character, but that doesn’t make it any less offensive or infuriating. Second, the authors have Grandma approach Damien with this advice unsolicited. He is not seeking advice or support or therapy. Grandma just gives it to him. Third, this is presented as, like, the true and good and perfect solution to depression. Just embrace joy! The only reason you’re depressed is because you’re too afraid to let yourself live your life fully because it opens you up to heartbreak and failure. And while I’m sure this is true of some people’s experiences, I’m not sure that’s true of Damien, whose depression is canonically something he’s struggled with for years and which stems from neglect and homophobia he faced from his family and community. Learning to cope with that is a little more complicated than just “embracing joy”. Fourth, the fact that they use language about “healing” depression at all, and especially because they use ~*Cherokee magic*~ to speed along the process. Cherokee spiritualism and religious beliefs are not mystical and magical, and constantly presenting them as such is super offensive. Moreover, you don’t heal from mental illness. It’s always there. Instead, you cope and grow and learn how to thrive in spite of it.
Also, the conclusion to Damien’s depression subplot is basically the same as the conclusion to Jack’s quest to have his humanity restored and Aphrodite’s struggle to overcome her addiction and mother-daughter conflict: He does nothing and it magically goes away. More specifically, he falls asleep in Jack’s room and wakes up to find Jack healed. And from then on his depression is never so much as hinted at.
Let’s look at Aphrodite’s subplot a little more now. This is, as I’m sure you guessed, another Issues Subplot. Aphrodite drinks too much and likes to pop Xanax. She’s an addict, and this is specifically tied to her abusive and neglectful upbringing. This, in theory, makes perfect sense. The problem is the execution (as always). For one, even though Aphrodite is constantly drinking and at one point pops two Xanax pills in one go, we never see her intoxicated except in one pivotal scene. She always seems perfectly coherent and normal. And when we do reach that pivotal scene where she’s actually behaving like a highly intoxicated person, the other characters’ responses are awful. Especially Zoey’s. See, Zoey decides the appropriate way to react to Aphrodite’s drunkenness is to yell at her, throw away her flask, and grab her by the shoulders and violently shake her, which is all followed up by using her position as High Priestess to order Aphrodite into sobriety.
Here’s the thing: Zoey knows that Aphrodite has gotten wasted after visiting her mom in the hospital, she knows Aphrodite’s mom is dying, and she knows that Aphrodite’s mom is a core source of her trauma. She also knows that Aphrodite’s mom’s main methods of abuse are yelling at Aphrodite, hitting her, and trying to control her – three things that Zoey does in this very scene. But Zoey is never presented as being in the wrong for this. Instead, Aphrodite is the one who apologizes to Zoey later when she has sobered up. It’s a really, really awful, insensitive, and just completely clueless representation of dealing with addiction.
The way Aphrodite “heals” doesn’t help matters, either, since she essentially just decides to get over her mother’s abuse, in much the same way that Damien just sort of decides to stop being depressed. It implies that mental illness and addiction are mind-over-matter issues rather than complex conditions influenced by upbringing, oppression, and the socio-political environment people exist under.
I know I’ve already rambled on for a long time, but I still have barely touched on all the major problems in this book. I’m serious. It’s that bad. To save myself and everyone else some time, here’s the highlights reel of awful, so to speak:
->The rampant nepotism of the North American Vampyre High Council just being Zoey and a bunch of her friends.
->Damien and Stevie Rae abandoning their posts at their own HoNs after less than a year, but not actually having to step down from their positions on the Council. Because, again, nepotism.
->Shaylin and Nicole go to San Francisco because it’s gay. Damien goes to New York, which is also a massive hub of queer culture and important historical landmark for Pride. Shaunee goes to New Orleans, which is known for being a hub of black culture. Stevie Rae is the only one who doesn’t go to her own Stereotypes Land.
->The ritual Shaylin talks about casting for the opening of the San Francisco HoN made all the women present start making out with each other, including all the straight women. It’s portrayed as funny, but it’s extremely creepy.
->The authors completely misuse the term “black girl magic” and also have Erik utter the words “Nubian princess” in reference to Shaunee.
->There is still plenty of sex shaming and body policing in this book. Even Erin, who doesn’t appear in this book, is brought up just so she can be called a slut.
->Why is it called the Other World? The Otherworld already exists in this series – it’s Nyx’s realm. Could the authors not think of any other term for their alternate dimension?
->The pre-story text claims that Shaylin has a “special maturity” because she used to be blind, which is some seriously ableist BS. Disability does not make you wiser or more mature and it isn’t uplifting or empowering to imply otherwise.
->Zoey makes really weird, selfish changes to rules at the HoN, like Spaghetti Madness on Tuesdays because it’s her favourite meal and relaxing the dress code because she wants to lounge around in sweatpants and a ponytail. This doesn’t do much to convince me that she’s a wise and responsible leader in spite of her young age.
->The requisite terrible poetry. I mean, there’s a prophetic poem in this book, but I genuinely have no idea what it was predicting. Maybe the theme of the book? Or just that it was going to snow? It doesn’t end up actually contributing anything to the plot, and it isn’t even a good poem in the first place.
->Frances LaFont’s whole political campaign makes no sense, especially since it’s trying to parallel real world politics. Vampyres can’t be a stand-in for Mexican and Muslim immigrants and other people of colour suffering under the Trump administration because they’re the elite. They are the richest and most powerful people in Zoey’s world – the mayor of Tulsa can’t do anything to them.
->The fact that the authors double down on this political parallel by comparing Frances LaFont’s prejudice against vampyres TO THE HOLOCAUST
->An unending amount of just really bad dialogue.
And I’ll stop there, because if I don’t, I’ll be here all day.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicide, and Misogyny
Minor: Antisemitism and Eating disorder
Sex shaming
More...