Marked

Marked by P.C. Cast

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I borrowed this book after a friend spoke over and over again about how she found it "far superior" to the Twilight Series, in terms of it's depiction of modern teenagers.



I did enjoy this book, but it definitely falls into my "Guilty Pleasures" category...books that do not require much thought, rather the ability to let go of thinking in the name of juvenile imagination for a few hours(and a few hours is all you need for this short, very easy read). The best way I can describe this read is that the author's had some great ideas and approaches(new spin on vampires/vampyres, first person of a teenager that is written in part by a teenager etc) but they went too far with most of them.



The biggest of these for me were being bombarded by "totally's", "like's" and OMG's, the overkill of pop culture references, and the way religion/spiritualty was approached. I can handle some of the airhead and text speak, knowing that it is often the case with teenagers, but a little restraint would have gone a long way in creating a little more depth and respect for characters. The repeated pop culture references came across to me as though they were trying way too hard to make their alternative version of the world seem like reality but without being very creative about it...Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, Shania Twain and Garth Brooks are all vampyres? Come on. If you're going to use pop culture references such as that, use some restraint. Yes, more restraint. You don't need to randomly drop names of very well known stars to get your point across, rather the point coming across to me is a lack of creativity. And, while I appreciate that they attempted to bring the elements of spirituality into the vampyre story, it came out as judgmental and convuluted often times(Zoey constantly degrades the fanatical "People of Faith" but they way she speaks about what she thinks of as "slut" behavior reminds me of the way I'd imagine a good church girl would, based on her own description of the church folk...). I did enjoy though, the mixture of the pagan, Wiccan and Cherokee traditions.



Hmmm...it kind of seems as though I didn't like this book! In reality, I don't think it's a book of superior quality in any way, but as I said before....if you're like me and need some "guilty pleasures" once in a while, this fits right in.





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