Chosen (House of Night, Book 3) | PC Cast, Kristin Cast

Chosen (House of Night, Book 3) | PC Cast, Kristin Cast | Enjoyable, but...

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Chosen (House of N...

	Chosen (House of Night, Book 3) PC Cast, Kristin Cast St. Martin's Griffin, 2008 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 56 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

It was friggin sweet

OMG. THis book was so friggin good. I love the writing, I love story, and I love the characters. It was great. I devoured it in like 2 days. SWEET

Enjoyable, but...

I have been eagerly awaiting "Chosen" since I read the first two House of Night novels. And it lived up to my expectations. Almost.

Zoey is a great character, very typical of a teenage girl. After being thrust into a powerful position in her vampyre boarding school, we watched her grow up a little bit.

But now, Zoey is finding out things about her mentor, the High Priestess, that she'd rather not know. Plus, her best friend Stevie Ray, who is dead but not quite, needs saving. Oh yeah, and Zoey has not one, but three boyfriends.

I really did enjoy the book. My main complaint is that Zoey, who has never said she was chaste, but has never acted promiscuous, is suddenly hooking up with three different guys. It seems completely out of character and it ticked me off.

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I read it in one night but.....

Deffinitely the most intence of the series so far, and good enough to read cover to cover without putting it down. Having said that though,I admitt to being aggravted by a lot that went on. I have enjoyed Zoey's maturity level in the previous two booksMarked (House of Night, Book 1) and Betrayed (House of Night, Book 2) but while reading Choosen I as often as not wanted to reach out and shake her, it's possible though that these were the kind of feelings that the authors were trying to evoke. I also found the constant references to Z's romantic entaglements slightly tedious, though given how things worked out there should be some interesting interactions in future books. Assuuming that there's going to be more then the one we are promised at the end of Choosen "Untamed" I can't say that I liked this one better then Betrayed, but Choosen feels like sort of a middle point, amd I find that the middle point of a series can somtimes fall a little short. In short Choosen is well worth the read, and does it's part to propell the Zoey's story far forwad she learned some bitterly harsh lessons in this book. It will be very intriguing to see were the ladies Cast will go from here.

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compelling and spell binding

When she was Marked by the goddess Nyx, teenager Zoey Redbird is taken to the House of Night School where she will eventually change into a vampyre or die. Her roommate Stevie Rae died in her arms but Zoe soon learned that she became one of the undead. Zoe is the most powerful fledging in vampyre history, able to call and master all five elements. She is trying to find a way to restore Stevie's soul and humanity but the high priestess in training can't tell her closest friends because their minds can be read by the perpetrator of this abomination.

Tensions rise when the fundamentalist group People of Faith beheads one of the vampyre teachers and nail her body to a wooden cross. The vampyre High Priestess calls in the Sons of Erebus, vampyre warriors, to guard the school. The only person who can help her get out is Aphrodite who knows what is going on with Zoey because she is the only other fledging whose mind can't be read. Trying to make up for her sins to the goddess, she helps Zoey and Stevie but the peace that has existed between humans and vampires is shaky and almost any action taken against a vampire will destroy it; Zoey will be in the middle of the two warring factions.

This is the third House of Night novel and it as just as compelling and spell binding as MARKED and BETRAYED. The heroine, a young teen, acts very mature for her age risking her friends' anger if they find out what she is keeping from them in order to protect them. Her nemesis Aphrodite is a bit softer than in previous tales because she knows her actions went against the will of Nyx. In the Cast mythos humans don't die to become vampires and humans know about their existence and for the most part accept them.

Harriet Klausner

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Zoey's perfect life isn't so perfect all of a sudden...

I was pretty iffy about CHOSEN. The authors have tried to throw a few curveballs Zoey's way in this book, and although I think it's long overdue I wasn't impressed.

In book 2, BETRAYED, I really liked seeing Zoey grow into a role of leadership, think for herself, and show some courage. She had ideas, and she made things happen. But in CHOSEN Zoey backslides a lot - she keeps coming up with plans of action (especially where her romantic life is concerned), and then...doing the exact opposite of what she decides. She makes some progress with Stevie Rae, but loses control everywhere else.

She makes some decisions that cause her friends to think twice about her. But I ended up thinking less of her friends because of these incidents.

A good example comes from the very beginning of the book, in the first chapter. Zoey's birthday is Christmas Eve and she has a serious problem with "Birthmas," when Christmas and Birthday gifts are smooshed together. But all of her friends get her Christmas-themed birthday presents. This seems unlikely from people like the Twins and Damien, who are very fashion-conscious and unlikely to get excited about kitsch. Zoey isn't thrilled but she thanks them all as enthusiastically as she can.

Then her friends spy on a birthday card from Zoey's old boyfriend that mentions how much she hates getting Christmassy gifts for her birthday...and they all get angry at Zoey. Because she should have told them what not to get before she knew what they were getting? Because she didn't tell them she didn't like their presents as she was opening them? Both of these things would have been pretty tacky and rude. But her friends are unanimous in their disapproval.

This whole incident left me feeling pretty frustrated with her friends, who were way too quick to jump on her, and whose behavior had been a little bizarre to begin with. Later on in the book, this type of incident is repeated and I was even more shocked at how fickle her friends appear to be. If someone has your back, they shouldn't be so fast to turn against you.

The end result is that even though Zoey is facing more difficult challenges than ever before, they felt manufactured and artificial to me. I'm not sure if I thought CHOSEN was better or worse than earlier books - it's still fun, self-indulgent, and kind of lightweight. I'll be reading the next one when it comes out.

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