House of Night mention? In the year of someone else's lord 2026? 😲
I'm rereading the series right now (to see if they deserve the space they're taking up on my bookshelf) and while I'm only up to book 4 they're so much worse than I remember them being?!
Like even if you somehow miss the anti-indigenousness (I don't know how you could, it's pretty blatant!), they're absolutely packed full of racism, homophobia, SA, and so much other ick that I'm surprised I used to like them so much!
I will admit that I was also obsessed with the crowboy though - what can I say, I'm a sucker for a mysterious part-animal antagonist (pointed look at Janus Sanders)!
well the way you dont notice in my case was 'not knowing anything about indigenous americans at age 14 and assuming the book was giving me accurate information' which is actually! worse maybe.
for the unfamiliar, house of night is a fantasy alternate history series where teenage humans sometimes randomly become vampires at puberty, this is public knowledge and these children are taken to vampire boarding school about it
the reason i enjoyed it was, in hindsight, that the central theme is really compelling and not terrible - vampirism has always been associated with 'dangerous' sexuality, and by tying that directly to puberty and it immediately giving the vampire teens a lot more agency (sexual, legal, religious, and otherwise - becoming a vampire instantly emancipates you, among other things) in-universe, thats an appealing plot to a teenager! especially teens like me, who grew up in very conservative homes
the problem is if you grew up in a repressive conservative home hating it and read house of night, it will appeal to you but you wont have any of the context necessary to avoid absorbing racist set dressing. its like its designed to feed desperate repressed exvangelicals racism with a peanutbutter Freedom From Your Repressive Parents fantasy coating
i have thought about taking that central theme and doing something with it myself. i can rebuild him etc. its a really juicy concept but in this political climate i cant imagine a publisher taking anything even close to it lol
