House of Night by P.C. Cast

House of Night: The Graphic Novel, Book 1

Synopsis: 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.

Melliane’s review: I’ve heard a lot of great things about this series for a long time and as I haven’t try the novels yet, I was very curious to know how the comic would be. Well, I think you understand I can’t do any comparisons between the book and the comic, but I’ll give you my feelings about this volume.
I confess I didn’t even read the synopsis of the book at first, but with all the positive reviews, I was sure to enjoy it. I’m finally not disappointed, it was really interesting to follow Zoe all along the novel. However, it was a little difficult for me to get into the story and to understand what was going on at first. Indeed, we begin in the middle of our heroine’s day and we need to wait some events to learn how Zoe ended like that.
Well, I was surprised by all the little stories featuring the mythology. It’s was pleasant to discover all those original ideas. I didn’t expect to see so many famous stories with some vampyres in it. Each allows our heroine to progress and to realize what she can do.
Regarding the comic itself, I really liked the pictures; it was very different from the ones I read before. The faces were sometimes a little too strong for me but we got used to it.
There is also a little thing that bothers me, it was the lack of coordination between everything; I had the feelings we passed from an event to another without any transitions.
But I have to say, that, once finished, I’m quite curious to try the novel as well to learn more about this world. It was the first time I tried the comic before the book but it’s finally great to do it this way.
Inessa’s review: So, the comic’s story begins just after the events in Marked – the first volume of The House of Night series – that led Aphrodite to no longer direct the Dark Daughters, task that now falls to Zoey. Zoey has therefore to prepare her first ritual as new leader of the Dark Daughters. 
I have to say I was a little bit apprehensive about reading this comic of the House of Night. Having read some of the novels a while ago, I was afraid of falling here through the same problems that I had with these books and that led me to stop to read the saga but fortunately it wasn’t the case! Because yes, I admit, I read The House of Night series until Volume 5, Hunted and then I gave up, mainly because I found the series seriously began to falter and that I had more and more difficulties to endure the heroin. 
That said I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that unlike the books, the comic, this first volume at least, doesn’t really focus on Zoey, her love affairs and her problems in the House of Night School! Of course it’s mentioned but this is not what matters most. The comic focuses more on the mythology that had mold the House of Night, something I haven’t found in the books and that was quite interesting. Moreover, the album is mostly divided into five chapters, which are actually the five fundamental elements that we can find consistently in the series: earth, air, water, fire and spirit. And in each of these chapters, we leave the House of Night School for a while and we go to a sort of a little journey through time. I enjoyed this little trip through this whole mythology! Among that, we have a revisited version of the love story of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, the Amazon Hippolyte, her ‘famous waist belt’ and Heracles, Circe, Freya, Queen Boudicca and her two daughters, etc. It was really exciting! 
Concerning the pictures, I’ve found them very amazing. It’s always nice to put a face to all these main characters that we know so well: Zoey, Aphrodite, Damien, Shaunee, Erin, Stevie Rae. Even the animals are present! I loved seeing Nalla and Persephone! Of course some people are better represented than others – the goddess Nyx and Neferet are particularly wonderful! – but overall I enjoyed it. 
To conclude it was quite fun to dive back into the universe of the series through this comic. It made me want to rediscover the saga. I think I’ll read it again from the beginning, one of these days and I’ll read the sequel of this comic with pleasure! 

14 thoughts on “House of Night by P.C. Cast

  1. I confess I only ever read the first House of Night book and didn’t like it enough to continue with the series. I’m not a big comic reader either, but I do think the cover is gorgeous. Glad it was worth reading! 🙂

  2. LOL my confession is just like the other Mel’s: I only read the first book in the series and didn’t really like it! x) I felt like everything was too predictable and Zoey wasn’t the easiest to like. But I think I would love to read this graphic novel to be able to put faces to the names, like Inessa said. And I like that you get to learn more about the mythology too! 🙂

    Awesome double-review, you two! I love it when you guys both read the same book because it gives me a double-perspective on it! 😉 <3

  3. I didn’t realize they had made this series into graphic novels! I’ll admit, I really enjoyed the first 2 or 3 books of this series – and then they just got ridiculous! I’m definitely tempted to look into this graphic novel though.

    Thanks for the reviews ladies!

  4. I love the adult paranormal romance involving mythology that P.C. Cast wrote, but I confess I have never tried the YA she wrote with her daughter nor have I really been tempted to try. I wish she would get back to her old works though, as the end in Bridgid’s Quest promised much for the future, but I’m still waiting! 🙁

    Great reviews!

  5. I must say that the comic sounds better than the books 😉 The books, oh those annoyed me to death with their silly cursewords, mentioning things over and over again and her being all Mary Sue

  6. Interesting how your ratings were fairly similar despite one knowing the books and one not. I usually find that graphic novels are hard to understand unless you’ve read the accompanying book. I’d like to read the series some time.

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