House of Night: Burned by P.C. Cast

When friends stop trusting each other, Darkness is there to fan the flames….

Things have turned black at the House of Night. Zoey Redbird’s soul has shattered. With everything she’s ever stood for falling apart, and a broken heart making her want to stay in the Otherworld forever, Zoey’s fading fast. It’s seeming more and more doubtful that she will be able pull herself back together in time to rejoin her friends and set the world to rights. As the only living person who can reach her, Stark must find a way to get to her. But how? He will have to die to do so, the Vampyre High Council stipulates. And then Zoey will give up for sure. There are only 7 days left… 

Enter BFF Stevie Rae. She wants to help Z but she has massive problems of her own. The rogue Red Fledglings are acting up, and this time not even Stevie Rae can protect them from the consequences. Her kinda boyfriend, Dallas, is sweet but too nosy for his own good. The truth is, Stevie Rae’s hiding a secret that might be the key to getting Zoey home but also threatens to explode her whole world.

In the middle of the whole mess is Aphrodite: ex-Fledgling, trust-fund baby, total hag from Hell (and proud of it). She’s always been blessed (if you could call it that) with visions that can reveal the future, but now it seems Nyx has decided to speak through her with the goddess’s own voice, whether she wants it or not. Aphrodite’s loyalty can swing a lot of different ways, but right now Zoey’s fate hangs in the balance.

Three girls… playing with fire… if they don’t watch out, everyone will get Burned

Whoa! What a rush this book was. Even though the synopsis made it seem as if the main contenders were Zoey, Stevie Rae, and Aphrodite. It wasn't exactly so.... It's hard trying to sort through my emotion. On one hand I'm bursting to go into the explicit details of this story on the other [hand] I'm fighting to play it calm and not spoil my easily spoiled readers out there.

Vague it is. Like I mentioned before; the book isn't centered around Zoey. When I say centered I mean you aren't reading her POV (Point Of View) for about 95% of this book. I have to say though, I loved how the Cast duo* has been writing these past books (Tempted and Burned) where you read Zoey's POV which is in the first person POV (meaning you read a lot of: "I feel", "I said", "I watched"). Where as, when it was say, Stevie Rae you'd read her POV in the third person ("She felt", "She said", "She watched") I'm pointing this out because  I think that it's a nice way of keeping the story Zoey's while, including the other main players for that moment.

Ok, I've been dodging actually talking about Burned. After reading this book you may have one or all of these feelings/realizations:

1. the book didn't cover much of the story
2. the book was way to short
3. is it just you or are these books getting shorter
4. the Cast duo is purposely feeding you cliffhangers
5. if each book keeps ending in cliffhanger you'd go ape poopy crazy
6. the events of this story happened under a seven day time period
7. the Cast duo could have squeezed 100+ more pages into the story
8. You absolutely CANNOT wait 6-7 months for the next book

Those were just my base feelings after reading Burned. Burned was fun, exciting, sad, sweet, exasperating, and overall bittersweet. The death of one of our heroes (NOT heroines) was finalized in this book, which unlike the sweet candy bar which isn't said hero's namesake, left a bitter taste in the end of Burned.

That's It For Now.

*Duo- favorite scrabble word a la moment. Got me out of a lot of jams that word.