_rowantree_'s review against another edition
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Bullying
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Death, and Child death
Minor: Body shaming, Death of parent, Sexism, Racism, Misogyny, Ableism, Alcohol, Cultural appropriation, Incest, Fatphobia, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Homophobia
msradiosilence's review against another edition
I’m 95 pages in, and the last book I DNF’d was Allegiant 9 years ago, but I fucking CANNOT with this book.
First of all, way to whitewash your main “native” character. Very SMeyer of you. How is it that the other POC character (Shaunee, a black woman) is allowed to have ‘mocha’/‘chocolate’ skin but Zoey goes from ‘tanned’ to ‘pale white’ hm? Sounds very…cultural appropriative, no?
For a book that has a gay character and a black character in the main cast, this book was *checks notes* fatphobic, transphobic, racist, and slut shame-y all in the first 8 pages! And it only gets worse!! This is why I fucking DNFed, because there is much better shit out there.
The writing was annoying as fuck, Zoey was super judgmental and annoying as fuck, all the other characters were shallow and annoying as fuck…did I mention how annoyed I was with this book?
I read it back in middle school (and bc of the blow job scene in the beginning was subsequently banned from reading it) but as an adult I’ve been going through a nostalgia period and this was one of the books I wanted to revisit. Honestly, thanks Mom and Dad for sparing me from the rest of this series.
First of all, way to whitewash your main “native” character. Very SMeyer of you. How is it that the other POC character (Shaunee, a black woman) is allowed to have ‘mocha’/‘chocolate’ skin but Zoey goes from ‘tanned’ to ‘pale white’ hm? Sounds very…cultural appropriative, no?
For a book that has a gay character and a black character in the main cast, this book was *checks notes* fatphobic, transphobic, racist, and slut shame-y all in the first 8 pages! And it only gets worse!! This is why I fucking DNFed, because there is much better shit out there.
The writing was annoying as fuck, Zoey was super judgmental and annoying as fuck, all the other characters were shallow and annoying as fuck…did I mention how annoyed I was with this book?
I read it back in middle school (and bc of the blow job scene in the beginning was subsequently banned from reading it) but as an adult I’ve been going through a nostalgia period and this was one of the books I wanted to revisit. Honestly, thanks Mom and Dad for sparing me from the rest of this series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Ableism, Blood, Classism, Cursing, Excrement, Lesbophobia, Mental illness, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Violence, Vomit, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Transphobia, Alcohol, and Sexual assault
aya_neela's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny and Bullying
bendersreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cultural appropriation
Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Sexism, and Sexual content
Minor: Blood
Most of the female cast are constantly slut-shamed, especially Aphrodite.irisestacansado's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.25
It's an interesting premise but there's so much slut shaming and tasteless comments I could only imagine how much it could've harmed me if I read it when I was younger.
For a young adult novel there is a lot of mentions of sex and how it's terrible to be slutty or how only girls with "functional brains" know better than to be used by boys by giving oral. While this is a common message, it's also hypocritical. Zoey is upset with girls who do some stereotypical flirting but does the same, she tells her ex that they're not dating but gets upset when her old best friend flirts with him bc that's cheating, etc.
This is also a book filled with stereotypes that made me somewhat uncomfortable, from the seemingly innocent "the pretty blondes are mean girls" to the gay best friend mentioning how hot the love interest is every other line to the whole "all religious people are culty and bad".
Aside from that, Zoey is just unlikeable to someone who isn't 12-14. She's a Mary Sue but still finds the time for her personal narrative to be rude, from tasteless comments about the "freaks" with anorexia to her judgements on near everyone different to her.
However, if you're into something mindless you can can find horrifyingly gauche you can stop reading just as much as you can look away from a car wreck, this is for you. Just as long as you can ignore the horrible word choices and the way that the vampires -- sorry, vampyres -- are some lovechild of a twilight vampire and a witch. Pretty much, read it because of the morbid curiosity if you must and buy it secondhand, just like I will do for the rest of the series because I simply have to know how bad it gets.
For a young adult novel there is a lot of mentions of sex and how it's terrible to be slutty or how only girls with "functional brains" know better than to be used by boys by giving oral. While this is a common message, it's also hypocritical. Zoey is upset with girls who do some stereotypical flirting but does the same, she tells her ex that they're not dating but gets upset when her old best friend flirts with him bc that's cheating, etc.
This is also a book filled with stereotypes that made me somewhat uncomfortable, from the seemingly innocent "the pretty blondes are mean girls" to the gay best friend mentioning how hot the love interest is every other line to the whole "all religious people are culty and bad".
Aside from that, Zoey is just unlikeable to someone who isn't 12-14. She's a Mary Sue but still finds the time for her personal narrative to be rude, from tasteless comments about the "freaks" with anorexia to her judgements on near everyone different to her.
However, if you're into something mindless you can can find horrifyingly gauche you can stop reading just as much as you can look away from a car wreck, this is for you. Just as long as you can ignore the horrible word choices and the way that the vampires -- sorry, vampyres -- are some lovechild of a twilight vampire and a witch. Pretty much, read it because of the morbid curiosity if you must and buy it secondhand, just like I will do for the rest of the series because I simply have to know how bad it gets.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny
Moderate: Drug abuse and Sexual assault
Minor: Eating disorder and Homophobia
rachaelarsenault's review against another edition
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 read this book a while back but never got around to adding a review. I figure it's better late than never. "Marked" is one of those frustrating books where I see promise in the premise but the execution is absolutely abysmal.
What I wanted: A book about a teen girl pulled between two lives - her old life as a human and her new life as a fledgling - who is gifted with great powers and a mysterious burden by a goddess, who struggles to fit in and fights for the underdog, whose friends are diverse and quirky.
What I got: A spoiled, elitist brat who insults anyone who doesn't fit her definition of cool or attractive, who praises herself for being open-minded while simultaneously being deeply prejudiced, who constantly looks down on others, and who settles into a position of power and importance with little effort or difficulty.
Zoey is insufferable. She claims to be a nerd and laments not fitting in, but attracts attention of the hottest guys in school as a human and a fledgling, instantly has a faithful entourage of friends, and really only gets flak from a small section of the school populace. Given that the people who give her a hard time are the designated Mean Girls of the story, that's hardly remarkable: They're mean to everyone. Moreover, Zoey doesn't seem to like anyone. She insults chess players, redheads, people with eating disorders, gay men (we'll get to that), black people (we'll also get to this), people struggling in school, poor people, etc. ad nauseum. Honestly, belittling other people is her defining character trait.
While Zoey does have a token gay friend, that doesn't excuse her from bigotry. She praises Damien by saying he "isn't a swishy girly-guy". In other words, he's not "too gay". She and her friends also make a point to emphasize that Damien's sexuality means he isn't really a guy, which is an incredibly offensive notion. Zoey also has a token black friend named Shaunee, but that doesn't stop her from having narrow-minded views of black people. For example, when meeting another black girl, Zoey is quick to dismiss the girl's long hair as being a weave, playing into a racist notion that black people can't possibly have naturally long hair. There's also the fact that Damien and Shaunee's characters are almost entirely defined by their tokenism: Damien is sassy, sensitive, and artistic; Shaunee is angry, sassy, and sensual.
Zoey is also horrible toward other girls, which is truly distressing in a story aimed at young teens and praised as progressive and empowering for said audience. At every turn, Zoey is hating on other women for any variety of reasons: They flirt with a boy she likes, they flirt with a boy she used to like but is dead-set against actually dating, they flirt with their own boyfriend, they wear clothing she doesn't like, they engage in sexual acts she doesn't like - in fact, a lot of Zoey's hatred toward other girls revolves around slut shaming. The antagonist of this book, Aphrodite, is hated on primarily because she is sexually confident and expressive. Her actual villainy is mostly dismissed - even though it includes refusing to report psychic visions that could save dozens of lives. Moreover, the way Zoey attacks her for her sexuality is nonsensical. An example of this is found early on in the book when Zoey stumbles across Aphrodite giving a blowjob to her boyfriend. The fact that the blowjob was against the boy's will and performed in the middle of a hallway is barely given a second thought; instead, what matters is that she was giving a blowjob. Apparently, only hateful, brain-dead sluts give blowjobs. For a series that's all about girl power, this is a deeply troubling view to espouse.
This isn't even touching on the writing, which is incredibly poor. There are numerous asides that interrupt the narrative, often killing the tension and serving no real purpose. The writing frequently shows instead of telling. Plus, Zoey can't maintain a consistent narrative voice. Sometimes she sounds like she's twelve, using words like "gihugic", "poopie", and giggling when she comments on "boobies" or calls something "gay". But then she'll suddenly start narrating poetically, describing moonlight as "spilled mercury" or saying that "raw fear engulfed [her] like a bitter wind." It makes it difficult to stay immersed in the story or get a clear idea of what Zoey's personality and maturity is actually supposed to be.
Even from a less technical standpoint, the narrative is pretty awful. The pacing is terrible - for example, at the beginning of the story Zoey needs to get to the House of Night so she can be around adult vampyres and avoid dying from Rejecting the Change. That sounds like it should be urgent, but the first four chapters are basically her going from one drawn out argument to the next. When characters stand around talking about how important and urgent something is for five pages instead of actually doing anything, it feels like maybe the stakes aren't so high. And it never gets better: A third of the book is spent following Zoey around for her first day of classes. A few important things happen, but not enough to warrant consuming so much time in the narrative. It isn't until page 160 that we have any sense of what the actual goal or conflict is in this book - and then, when we get to the climax, a completely out-of-nowhere antagonist appears and is almost immediately dismissed without any real struggle on the part of the protagonists.
The world-building is shoddy, too. It's essentially a patchwork of randomly capitalized words to signal they're important, dismissing actual folkloric ideas about vampirism, and picking random celebrities or historical figures and going, "Hey, this person is actually a vampyre!" Then throw in a matriarchal power structure that is still somehow deeply misogynistic and call it a day. If you take more than a few seconds to question how things work, the whole world starts to fall apart pretty quickly.
Overall, this is a terribly written, deeply offensive, and incredibly disappointing book. I've continued reading the series out of a purely academic interest - there is no true enjoyment to be gained from it.
What I wanted: A book about a teen girl pulled between two lives - her old life as a human and her new life as a fledgling - who is gifted with great powers and a mysterious burden by a goddess, who struggles to fit in and fights for the underdog, whose friends are diverse and quirky.
What I got: A spoiled, elitist brat who insults anyone who doesn't fit her definition of cool or attractive, who praises herself for being open-minded while simultaneously being deeply prejudiced, who constantly looks down on others, and who settles into a position of power and importance with little effort or difficulty.
Zoey is insufferable. She claims to be a nerd and laments not fitting in, but attracts attention of the hottest guys in school as a human and a fledgling, instantly has a faithful entourage of friends, and really only gets flak from a small section of the school populace. Given that the people who give her a hard time are the designated Mean Girls of the story, that's hardly remarkable: They're mean to everyone. Moreover, Zoey doesn't seem to like anyone. She insults chess players, redheads, people with eating disorders, gay men (we'll get to that), black people (we'll also get to this), people struggling in school, poor people, etc. ad nauseum. Honestly, belittling other people is her defining character trait.
While Zoey does have a token gay friend, that doesn't excuse her from bigotry. She praises Damien by saying he "isn't a swishy girly-guy". In other words, he's not "too gay". She and her friends also make a point to emphasize that Damien's sexuality means he isn't really a guy, which is an incredibly offensive notion. Zoey also has a token black friend named Shaunee, but that doesn't stop her from having narrow-minded views of black people. For example, when meeting another black girl, Zoey is quick to dismiss the girl's long hair as being a weave, playing into a racist notion that black people can't possibly have naturally long hair. There's also the fact that Damien and Shaunee's characters are almost entirely defined by their tokenism: Damien is sassy, sensitive, and artistic; Shaunee is angry, sassy, and sensual.
Zoey is also horrible toward other girls, which is truly distressing in a story aimed at young teens and praised as progressive and empowering for said audience. At every turn, Zoey is hating on other women for any variety of reasons: They flirt with a boy she likes, they flirt with a boy she used to like but is dead-set against actually dating, they flirt with their own boyfriend, they wear clothing she doesn't like, they engage in sexual acts she doesn't like - in fact, a lot of Zoey's hatred toward other girls revolves around slut shaming. The antagonist of this book, Aphrodite, is hated on primarily because she is sexually confident and expressive. Her actual villainy is mostly dismissed - even though it includes refusing to report psychic visions that could save dozens of lives. Moreover, the way Zoey attacks her for her sexuality is nonsensical. An example of this is found early on in the book when Zoey stumbles across Aphrodite giving a blowjob to her boyfriend. The fact that the blowjob was against the boy's will and performed in the middle of a hallway is barely given a second thought; instead, what matters is that she was giving a blowjob. Apparently, only hateful, brain-dead sluts give blowjobs. For a series that's all about girl power, this is a deeply troubling view to espouse.
This isn't even touching on the writing, which is incredibly poor. There are numerous asides that interrupt the narrative, often killing the tension and serving no real purpose. The writing frequently shows instead of telling. Plus, Zoey can't maintain a consistent narrative voice. Sometimes she sounds like she's twelve, using words like "gihugic", "poopie", and giggling when she comments on "boobies" or calls something "gay". But then she'll suddenly start narrating poetically, describing moonlight as "spilled mercury" or saying that "raw fear engulfed [her] like a bitter wind." It makes it difficult to stay immersed in the story or get a clear idea of what Zoey's personality and maturity is actually supposed to be.
Even from a less technical standpoint, the narrative is pretty awful. The pacing is terrible - for example, at the beginning of the story Zoey needs to get to the House of Night so she can be around adult vampyres and avoid dying from Rejecting the Change. That sounds like it should be urgent, but the first four chapters are basically her going from one drawn out argument to the next. When characters stand around talking about how important and urgent something is for five pages instead of actually doing anything, it feels like maybe the stakes aren't so high. And it never gets better: A third of the book is spent following Zoey around for her first day of classes. A few important things happen, but not enough to warrant consuming so much time in the narrative. It isn't until page 160 that we have any sense of what the actual goal or conflict is in this book - and then, when we get to the climax, a completely out-of-nowhere antagonist appears and is almost immediately dismissed without any real struggle on the part of the protagonists.
The world-building is shoddy, too. It's essentially a patchwork of randomly capitalized words to signal they're important, dismissing actual folkloric ideas about vampirism, and picking random celebrities or historical figures and going, "Hey, this person is actually a vampyre!" Then throw in a matriarchal power structure that is still somehow deeply misogynistic and call it a day. If you take more than a few seconds to question how things work, the whole world starts to fall apart pretty quickly.
Overall, this is a terribly written, deeply offensive, and incredibly disappointing book. I've continued reading the series out of a purely academic interest - there is no true enjoyment to be gained from it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Death
Moderate: Body shaming, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Vomit, and Misogyny
Minor: Ableism, Alcoholism, and Eating disorder
Sex shaming
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