Hidden
The last three reviews for the House of Night series have taken me a while to write and as I sit down to write one for Hidden, I feel as if I can't articulate anything to say about it. Hidden deals with the repercussions of Destined and like with many of the books so far, could have been lumped together with the one before it, or the one after it. Not much happens aside from stuff gets recapped, but not in the same way the Casts did in previous books. It's more than just 'Jack died a few books back and we're still trying to deal!' it's more along the lines of Neferet is evil, but we already knew that, and Erin is going dark side, but we already knew that, oh and Zoey is intrigued by Aurox... but we already knew that. Maybe it just comes off as sloppy writing to me as I read these books one after another and didn't have to wait six months to a year for the next one. This review won't be as long as others I've written for House of Night.
The usual characters have endeared themselves to me; Aphrodite, Stevie Rae, Rephiam, even Aurox doesn't seem that bad. Zoey has done some growing up, something I can put on Thanatos for actually being an adult who has a positive influence on the teens. Seriously, if you've read my other House of Night reviews, that has always been one of my problems with this series, the lack of positive adults.
The one thing I want to rip into is how Erin's character was treated as when I stop to think about most of my gripes about this book, Erin is the character they lead back to. There were a few times when she was reaching out for help, or someone could have stopped and talked to her but they just let her go without a fight. I can appreciate the fact that the Casts decided to split up the Twins, but I felt that it a)Wasn't handled well and b)Came far to late in the game for me to really consider it good for the story. At one point in Hidden, the Nerd Herd gets onto their bus and Erin announces she's staying at the school. At this point, Erin was already willing to hand over Beelzebub to Shaunee and already deep into a relationship with Dallas, two times someone from the nerd herd could have talked to her. Zoey shrugs and tells her it's her decision, gets onto the bus, sits next to Shaunee and tells her she likes her better without Erin, in fact, with the way Erin has been acting, she likes Shaunee better anyways. At least Aphrodite said she likes Shaunee thinking for herself, even if what she said to Aphrodite was par for the course without Erin there to echo her. Attempts to win Erin back could have drove her defection home harder if the actual attempt to get her back were there. With Erin running Evil, Shaylin steps in to handle the water element.
Also, in line with the whole Erin thing, if you didn't have the internet back in late 2012, you missed out on the epilogue the Casts released on the HoN webpage. I wouldn't have known about it myself as there's nothing about it in the book itself, or mentioned anywhere really unless you go to the Hidden page itself on the HoN website. Maybe they advertised it when the book was released? I wouldn't know I only read the book recently. The website based epilogue kicks off with the newly liberated school throwing a fund raiser for the Street Cats society. When Hidden left off with Neferet being subdued, the epilogue had her manifesting from spiders. The nerd herd assembles, talking Erin into controlling water again only to have her taken out by darkness. That's right, Erin was taken out in a chapter I didn't even know existed if I hadn't been following links around the internet. Erin, however, was redeemed in the eyes of her friends so we have that. In the grand scheme of things, it felt cheap. So many characters; Dragon, Heath, Stark and Stevie Rae, ALL got deaths worthy of mention. Even Jack and Linda, minor characters, had notable deaths but Erin, a lead character there since book one, is killed off screen in a chapter I had to look for.
That about sums up Hidden.