Monday 4 June 2012

Review: House of Night

House of Night #1 (House of Night: The Graphic Novel, #1)
House of Night by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Publish Date: 4th July 2012
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Page Count: 132
Synopsis:  The magical world of New York Times best-selling authors P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast comes to comics! Until recently, Zoey Redbird was an average high-school student worrying about grades, boys, and breakouts. But priorities have a way of changing when you are Marked as a vampyre, enroll in the vampyre academy House of Night, and have to figure out a whole new social hierarchy, affinities for elemental magic, and physiological changes that make you crave blood. 
Review: I received this for review from NetGalley and I guess I jumped the gun a little, I requested it because I really wanted to read the series but knew that I wouldn't be able to get my hands on it any time soon and figured this would be a good substitute. Well turns out someone actually gifted me the series this month, well the first 8 which is a lot of books, and after finishing reading this I realised I've probably read a bunch of spoilers.
So now to my proper review, obviously as I haven't read anything else to do with this series it was interesting to see this different take on vampyre's, for starters they end up being marked and it takes a long time for the transition from fledgling to full blown vamp to be completed but could also end up rejecting the transition and dying at any time. With this being a graphic novel there is a lack of explanation into how the marking takes place or happens, there are a few hints here and there but not full detail into the process, you also get to see what happens when the transition fails which is pretty brutal. I liked the layout of the storyline too, how they visited each of the affinities individually so we get to meet some pretty big names in history and their alternate-vampyre related history. I do believe that when the story transfers to each of the history/affinity lessons are the more interesting parts but that isn't too hard to believe because they are long and obviously I have no connection to the characters. I think a downside to this graphic novel is that it's not 100% sure of its target audience, when the story is following Zoey and her friends I could easily believe its for a younger audience but some of the topics that are touched upon in the history sections are darker, brutal and graphic which could illustrate an older target audience, or at least one a little more maturer than the previous suggests and this led me to being a little confused at times, especially when some of the more darker things that happened were simply glossed over. Maybe I'm just picky? Maybe I can't judge properly without reading the series, who knows? One thing is for sure it got me desperate to pick up the main series a lot sooner than planned but I think I'll only continue with the graphic novel series if I adore the series with all my heart. It was a good read but I think I could appreciate it more with background knowledge.
Recommend? I'd say read the series first.
Amazon: UK | US
P.C. Cast: GR | Website | Facebook | Blog
Kristin Cast: GR | Website

5 comments:

  1. i couldn't get into the series, so i was kinda wanting to try this instead :) hmm, now i'll have to think twice..

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    1. It was a good read I just feel like there was something missing. You can see one of the history parts here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjXRuP0Ol_w

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  2. Ugh! I loved the first three then it went downhill for me til Destined. It was cool at first but it felt cliquey on the latter books. I love Aphrodite and Neferet though

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    1. Obviously I can't really comment on those books yet, maybe I can pick them up next month :)

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  3. I love the cover of this! I'm reading the series right now, but it's soooooooo long. It frustrates me.

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