Thursday, November 8, 2012

Night School & Chosen [Review]

I have two reviews for y'all today :)

**3 1/2 stars**

Stats:
#1 in Vampire Hunter Trilogy
62 Pages [Kindle]
Published 19 March 2012



Synopsis:
Fifteen year old Dasheen Bellamy’s world is turned upside down, when she is accused of killing her father and godmother. Dasheen cannot remember the events of the night her world is destroyed, but she feels inside that she is innocent; due to lack of evidence against her and with no other family; Dasheen and her younger brother Jordan, are sent to the elusive and mysterious Ame’ Academy ; a residential school where all is not what it appears. There all goes well, until Jordan, begins to become distant and behave strangely as if he is afraid of something or someone. Jordan is transferred to Ame’ Academy’s Night School track, which is usually only open to special cases. In order to discover what is happening with her brother, Dasheen is finally allowed to also transfer, attending classes in the evening while the rest of the world sleeps. Soon Dasheen’s world changes again as she discovers that things out of fairytales and horror stories exist, that she has ancient powers and is the major player in a mystical prophecy; and then she falls in love with a boy, whose mission is to see that she is destroyed before her destiny is fulfilled…


My Thoughts:
This is a novella. I wanted to start out by saying that because it got a lot of poorer ratings for being "short" and it's meant to be short. It's a novella.

So with that being said, I am intrigued by the information that Cornwell-Jordan packed into this novella. We meet Dasheen, a teenager who has visions that leave her comatose, hospitalized, and parentless. Her and her brother, Jordan, start attending Ame' Academy - a mysterious school full of a lot of weird characters. Dasheen starts to worry about her brother after he starts avoiding her and she discovers he was switched to the Ame' Academy's Night School. She convinces the principal to let her start Night School track too. On her way home after class one night/early, early morning, Dasheen is attacked by some vampires. Not something she expected at all. Dasheen kills the leader of the pack and is informed by a few new friends that she is a Vampire Hunter.

Dasheen is a likeable character. She isn't a "Bella" - she isn't a lovesick, naive pushover. Cornwell-Jordan also hinted towards other preternatural creatures like hybrid vamp/humans and genies, so I really want to find out what happens next!

I received a copy of Night School for an honest review through the ARR Program of the We Heart YA group on Goodreads.




Stats:
#3 in House of Night series
320 Pages [Ebook]
Published 4 March 2008
ASIN: B000V78UQS


Synopsis:
Dark forces are at work at the House of Night and Zoey Redburn’s adventures at the school take a mysterious turn. Her best friend, Stevie Rae, is undead and struggling to maintain a grip on her humanity. Zoey finds herself in the very unexpected and rare situation of having three boyfriends. Mix a little bloodlust into the equation and the situation has the potential to spell social disaster. Just when it seems things couldn’t get any tougher, vampyres start turning up dead. Really dead. It looks like the People of Faith are tired of living side-by-side with vampyres. But, as Zoey and her friends so often find out, how things appear rarely affects the truth..


My Thoughts:
I've decided that if the next one isn't better - that I will not be giving any of the others a chance.

It seems like this one was one of those really boring describe meaningless everyday events of the protagonist which includes juggling her 3 boyfriends or being a ho as she says many times during the book, not telling her 3 other "friends" anything that is going on, and just a general woe is me attitude. That was for pretty much most of the book and then in the last little bit an actual substantial plot happened, but it was done so sloppily and quick that it was not at all satisfying.

Again..reading the 4th and if it's not better...I'm done with this series. Can't waste my time with all the potentially amazing books out there!


--
P.S. I got about 25% thru the 4th book and put it down. It was by far even worse than the rest. No more HON for me. 


Previous Review:
Seven-X by Mike Wech {here}

[Counts toward my TBR Pile challenge: here]

Linked up at...

1 comment:

SMD @ lifeaccordingtosteph said...

I felt the same about The House of Night Series. They could've been so much better.