Review – Hunted (House of Night, Book 5) by P.C. and Kristin Cast (2/5 stars)

This is the fifth book in the House of Night series; all in all this series has been very inconsistent. The third book was kind of ho-hum, the fourth book was excellent, and the fifth book, well, it kind of sucked.

In this book Zoey and friends are hiding in the tunnels with Stevie Rae and her red fledglings. Somehow they need to get back into the House of Night to face Neferet and Kalona and somehow break the influence they are having on the vampires and fledglings of the House of Night.

The above is basically the whole story. Sadly the first 2/3’s of the story are spent in the tunnels with not a whole lot happening. Zoey spends a lot of time whining about Erik being too possessive. Then, of course, Zoey has to get involved with Heath…again. And because Zoey wouldn’t have enough to whine about without being involved in a love triangle, Stark is drug into the picture too. This story felt like it was almost a repeat of the third book; at least in the relationship aspects. Seriously nothing exciting actually happens until the last section of the book. This section was pretty good and dealt with Zoey and friends going back to the House of Night and facing Neferet and Kalona.

This has been a very inconsistent series for me. Some of the books I love and some I hate. I feel that there has been more hate than love for this series for me. There are so many interesting things that could be happening with these characters and this world; it seems though that the majority of page space is lent to Zoey so she can whine about relationship troubles. All of her whining makes me think that maybe she is not the special Priestess that everyone thinks she is; I mean she is one of the weakest heroines I have ever read about.

I had a tough time getting through this book. I am finding that I don’t really care about many of the characters all that much. The plot wasn’t very exciting or griping. Believe it or not I though Aphrodite was my favorite character of this book; her actions are much more heroic than any of the others. I am not sure I will read the 6th book. My overall reaction when I finished this book was, “Thank goodness I am done, I can read something good now!”

Sorry this is such a scalding review, but I am sooo disappointed that this series can’t be more consistent!