House of Night Series Review

[lunabee34]

Have any of y'all read P.C. and Kristin Cast's House of Night series? I just read like all of them this week (eagerly awaiting next installment!), and I was wondering if anybody else was familiar. The basic premise is that vampyres (oh that spelling slays me) have always been around and that vampirism is a physiological change that scientists can't quite explain. When you begin to undergo the Change from human to vampyre as a teen, you go off to vamp boarding school to learn all about your new lot in life. So Supernatural High.


I really like this series although it's not without it's problems. Good stuff first, though.

1. This series is all about the ladies--really strong, compelling female characters. Vamp society is matriarchal in this series, and the three main characters are female.

2. It's truly an ensemble cast. Not all the secondary characters get totally fleshed out but enough of them do that you're not so confined in the main protagonist's head.

3. Nobody's static. They all change and learn and grow. They make mistakes, stupid teenage mistakes.

4. They actually seem like teenagers to me.

5. We have people of color! African American and Native American characters play very big roles in this series. The Cherokee belief system plays an integral role. (It's set in Tulsa, OK.)

6. We have gay kids! Who actually get to have romantic relationships!

7. I get a kick out of the way religion is depicted in these books. Zoey's step-dad is a leader of the People of Faith (read fundamentalist Protestant) and her mother is totally subsumed (by choice) beneath his yoke. Naturally, they are horrified when Zoey is vamped. Vampires believe in the goddess Nyx who shows up from time to time in the story. Cherokee beliefs also play a huge, huge part in the novels (Zoey's grandmother is Cherokee and has reared her in this tradition), and then some Catholic nuns (who are seriously awesometastic) get thrown into the mix and suggest that Nyx is just another incarnation of Mary.

8. It's just good, cracky fun with supernatural danger and hot guys and bloodlust. Yum!

And now for the problems.

1. While we do have people of color represented in the novel, one character's depiction strikes me as problematic. On the one hand, Kramisha (African American) is powerful, and she has agency. From the very beginning, she is in charge of her body and her sexuality. She's made Vamp Poet Laureate; she writes prophetic poetry that plays an integral part in defeating the bad guys. She gets to speak the truth to power and say uncomfortable truths. She's respected and not marginalized in the least. But...she speaks terribly ungrammatical English. Parts of her speech patterns ring really true for me. I teach primarily African American kids who come from urban areas, and so when Kramisha says "female" instead of "woman" or "girl" that sounds right to me, for example. But when she says, "I be worried about Stevie Rae," I just cringe. I don't know. What do y'all think?

2. We do have gay kids--two gay guys--and they also have power and agency and special skills in the context of this supernatural world. They actually get to kiss and hold hands and really be a couple. And the other kids in the group are protective of them and really mindful of homophobia. That being said, at times I feel like the authors are laying on the stereotypes a little too thick.

3. Sometimes as I'm reading, there's a little too much of a Sookie Stackhouse/Anita Blake fifty million boyfriends vibe that annoys me (mostly only in one book). What I like about that though is that multiple love interests = consequences and interesting plot, so six of one half dozen of the other there.

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think that some African-American speech patterns use "be" to mean an ongoing state, so Kramisha might mean that her concern about Stevie Rae was continuing rather than transient. Cf. "You makin' sense, but you don't BE makin' sense."

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

*nods*

And that may very well be true.

I just can't decide if the authors are doing something really cool with code-switching or if they're indulging in the worst stereotypes, you know?

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Categories tend to collapse anyway--an African-American teenager who watches a lot of "urban" TV and movies is probably going to start talking like the characters as well as talking like their parents and people in the neighborhood.