I saw this series touted on the Gush/Literature page as having great characters and world-building. Intrigued, I borrowed the books from my library.
After reading them, I have to ask: Just which series was this gusher reading?
HON isn't all bad: I liked Aphrodite's Character Development and Stevie Rae's subplot, and the vampyre mythology and tantalizing hints of a deeper plot kept me reading for five books even when many things were beginning to annoy me.
However, I gave up halfway through Hunted. Why? Let me list the reasons:
Zoey is the epitome of the meant-to-be-spunky-but-is-just-whiny-and-annoying heroine. Trying to make a flawed yet likeable character by having her wangst about how she can't choose among the three hot guys chasing her and then cheat on her boyfriend with the other two after she assured him that she wasn't going to be a "ho" will not work, especially when you drop her into the exact same situation two books later with her having learned nothing whatsoever from her past experience.
The Romantic Plot Tumors. Dear lord, the Romantic Plot Tumors. Not only do they make Zoey immensely unlikeable with all the wangst and hypocrisy, they overshadow the far more interesting vampyre subplots and imply that all teen girls think about are boys, because who cares about vampyre conspiracies when there are hawt guys for readers to drool over?
The other characters, with the partial exceptions of Aphrodite and Stevie Rae, are all caricatures and stereotypes. Zoey's friends have just one or two traits each and exist solely to be her adoring fanclub (except for Damien, who gets to show how ~progressive~ the series is for having a gay character), and the Big Bad would have a moustache to twirl if she was male.
The insulting attempts to make the characters sound like "real" teens by inserting pop culture references and cringe-inducing "hip" terms in every single damned thing they say. It smacks of the Casts talking down to their audience and forgetting the "adult" in "young adult".
Somewhere underneath all this is a good plot trying to get out, but after Hunted I couldn't be arsed to keep on reading with Zoey and almost everything else getting on my last nerve. Gushing about this? I think not.
A potentially interesting plot wasted on vapid characters and romances
I saw this series touted on the Gush/Literature page as having great characters and world-building. Intrigued, I borrowed the books from my library.
After reading them, I have to ask: Just which series was this gusher reading?
HON isn't all bad: I liked Aphrodite's Character Development and Stevie Rae's subplot, and the vampyre mythology and tantalizing hints of a deeper plot kept me reading for five books even when many things were beginning to annoy me.
However, I gave up halfway through Hunted. Why? Let me list the reasons:
Somewhere underneath all this is a good plot trying to get out, but after Hunted I couldn't be arsed to keep on reading with Zoey and almost everything else getting on my last nerve. Gushing about this? I think not.