Reading With Tyler

Name: Redeemed
Series: House of Night #12 (Final)
Author: PC Cast and Kristin Cast
Publisher: Atom
Format: Kindle
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Supernatural
Noted Tropes: Prophecy, The Chosen One, Magical School, Love is the Answer, The Mentor, The Evil One, Vampyres, Found Family
Steam or Spice: None

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Review:

Redeemed is the final book in the House of Night series and there may be spoilers from the previous books in this review.

Was it perfect? No. But it ended beautifully and I loved reading every page! This series has been with me for many years, and I’m glad to have finally finished it. I wish I could have finished it sooner. I think if I had managed to finish this when it came out (over a decade ago!), like I intended, I would have enjoyed this a lot more than adult me did. And that’s okay, at the end of the day our likes as readers change as we grow up! And this would have been enough for me then.

Unfortunately as it was finished as an adult, my opinion on certain things have changed. I don’t like feeling the story is rushed and conclusions are jumped to. I found that with Redeemed – Zoey somehow figured things out but there hadn’t been anything to really suggest how she got to that decision. I’m opting to believe this has to be my bad, that I skipped a line as I was reading, or perhaps forgot something that had been mentioned in a previous book because I needed to finish this series and finally put it to bed.

In terms of the characters, I did feel as though they started the task of maturing finally. I still love Zoey and Stark as a couple, and I’m glad that the possessive bullshit died down finally. Aurox, a character connected to one of my least favorites (Heath), had his moment to shine as AUROX! Not as Heath. I freaking loved that. And Zoey’s Nerd Herd feels like they’re complete – a moment of silence for the members we’ve lost along the way is required.

The Neferet plot line is finally over and I’m glad for it – 12 books of the same enemy started to get old, it never felt like anything new was being brought to the table. Especially with Kalona turning good, Neferet was sort of left alone with the Darkness and the White Bull. And she was just evil, there was no redeeming qualities about her and we had accepted this a many books back by this point! It was just kind of boring…

That being said, the ending was really lovely – I’m so happy for the ending that the group got. It felt desereved, and it felt satisfying. So I’m totally okay with that. Congratulations Nerd Herd. And thank you for teaching me that darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.

House of Night takeaways: I loved the Vampyres/Fledgings/Marked system of this world. Something has fascinated me (as a person who doesn’t like tattoos, this next comment is odd!) about the idea of someone’s power being reflected in marks on their skin. And I can probably attribute that love to the House of Night as it was the first version of it that I read about way back when!

This is one of those YA series that I do think should remain with the young adult community, I think they’d enjoy it more than us adults who enjoy YA as throughout most of the series the characters act like the children they are and that is just very gripey as an adult who has already (sometimes, in my case) grown out of that!

I will read the spin off series (edited to add: I believe the review for Loved, the first book in the House of Night Other World series is on the blog already) because I’ve been told it has some characters in it that were previously lost to us and I’m excited for that. But I probably won’t be in a rush for it.

“It’s easy to die for someone,” I said, “but it is so much more valuable to live. I do not give you permission to fail if I fail. Do you understand me?” – Tisaanah