Book Review: Destined by PC & Kristin Cast

Title: Destined

Author: PC & Kristin Cast
Series: House of Night, #9
Pages: 325
Publisher: ATOM
Date of Publication: 25th October 2011
Source: Gifted from Andy at The Pewter Wolf! THANKS! :D
Synopsis from Goodreads: In Destined, the forces of Light and Dark collide as their epic struggle focuses on Tulsa's House of Night. Zoey is home where she belongs, safe with her Guardian Warrior, Stark, by her side and preparing to face off against Neferet. Kalona has released his hold on Rephaim, and, through Nyx's gift of a human form, he and Stevie Rae are finally able to be together if Rephaim can truly walk the path of the Goddess and stay free of his father's shadow.

But is Zoey really safe? Does she truly know those who are closest to her? And will love win when it is tested by the very soul of Darkness?

My Thoughts:
The House of Night series is a really long one. For the last few books, I'd thought that the story had been dragged on a little too long, and I felt that it could have ended a couple books ago, and there was no need for 12 books. Despite this I told myself I would stick with the series until the end, and I would definitely read them all. And I'm SO glad I did! Destined was back up to the standard I'd come to expect from this series. It was awesome.

Up until Zoey's soul got shattered, she was kind of annoying me. She wouldn't stop moaning, or deciding and then redeciding what she would do and which boy she would choose, and it was awesome when she finally decided that she wanted Stark and once she'd come to terms with what was expected of her, but I didn't know whether it would last. And sure, in Destined she's confused and she finds it difficult to decide what to do, but she calmly makes up her mind like a proper little High Priestess, and I found that her narratives were my favourite, as the book is told from many different points of view.

About that. I really like how in each book more and more points of view are added, and it really helps me to understand what is going on, as a lot of the time the books are full of action and I'm not sure what's going on and why, so having the multiple points of view from nearly EVERYONE involved, made it easy. While Zoey's narrative was my favourite, I REALLY liked Shaunee's. Despite her being one of the 'nerd herd' and being in all the books, Destined really made me realise how little we actually know about her, and the storyline that emerges about her was a really nice insight into her mind, and I understood her a lot more.

The plot of the whole series is confusing, but as always, Destined starts off with a little recap into everything that happened in the last couple of books so I wasn't entirely lost when I started reading. I wouldn't recommend reading this one without reading the rest of the series, but it's easy to pick up the plot again once you've started reading, if like me, you didn't have time to read the last eight books in the series again... Anyway, the plot of Destined was fast and exciting, and it builds up to a big awesome thing at the end, that I really enjoyed reading about and most definitely did NOT see coming. I love the twists in these books!

Overall, Destined was a great instalment into the House of Night series. I'd recommend this series to fans of Vampire Academy or Twilight, or if you're looking for an ongoing series to start following. It's never too late!

And lastly, a HUGE THANK YOU to ANDY for sending this to me! You're AWESOME :D

My Rating:

I give it 4 Feet!

Challenges:
2011 100+ Reading Challenge #96
2011 Paranormal YA Reading Challenge #51