In Zoey Redbird’s world, humans are made into vampyres after they are chosen by the Goddess Nyx. They leave their families and go to live at the local House of Night which is a training ground/school for fledgling vampyres. But, that’s just background noise because she has to deal with whatever her best friend is babbling about, and her ex-almost boyfriend, and her mother’s new husband who is a elder in the People of Faith and who has taken over her mother’s life (and subsequently destroyed her relationship with her Mom.)

Did I say it was background noise? I meant it was exposition. Zoey Redbird is marked in the first chapter and has to go to vampyre school. She is visited in a dream by Nyx and she is asked to be the Goddess’s very own eyes and ears in the school. Talk about responsibility.

The rest of the book is taken up with typical school story narrative. People are terrible and fledgling vampyres don’t buck that trend. There are mean girls, there are the cool kids, there are the people you are lucky enough to have as friends. And, there is a mystery of dead or maybe not-so-dead fledglings. Zoey has to navigate the halls of the school and investigate the mystery.

This is the first book in the series, and as discussed in my Saturday Reads I liked Zoey Redbird very much. The second half of the book involved a lot of description of ritual, and while I liked that, it felt a lot using non-Christian cultural practices as a way to make the vampyre world seem exotic and interesting and special instead of pushing the plot forward by character development or by divulging more about the mystery. And, that’s lazy at best and appropriative at worst. Also, a lot of the references felt really dated or forced. Zoey and her friends make a lot of pop culture references.

Even with the low points, I liked the characters and I’ll probably read at least the next one in the series.