But the fact it keeps switching back and forth on whether or not sex is okay and is aggressive on the belief that it isn’t makes the novels dangerous. It wouldn’t be the first YA vampire series to push that agenda, even Twilight was guilty of it. I mean, it’d be one thing if this series had a strict abstinence only philosophy. That led me to question, just how much responsibility should authors have to educate their readers on social issues?

I can’t have the fact I helped distribute this fake feminist propaganda to children on my conscience! But then I realized a young girl might read them then. I don’t want this disgrace to feminism on my shelves any longer so initially I thought I would donate them to my local little library. The terrible story quality aside, all of this hypocritical slut-shaming has me stressed out on what to do with my personal copies of Marked and Betrayed. The fan made wiki for Zoey can’t even be nice about it. All except for our heroine Zoey Redbird, of course! I wish this was an exaggeration, but its not.

“Bad” characters who go good stop having sex.

“Good” characters who go evil start having sex. Sexual and independent women are shamed and villainized. Reading through the synopsis of the remaining ten books (who even writes series that long any more my god), I can confirm that the hypocrisy never ever ends. Maybe she’ll realize those “sluts” she keeps shaming are just young women who are actively pursuing romantic interests while empowering themselves to act independent of their previous patriarchal identities, just like what she was doingĪbout halfway through the sequel, when Zoey climbed on top of her not-boyfriend to make out with him a literal page after she went on a rant about how terrible non-monogamous women were, I realized the slut-shaming hypocrisy was never going to end. Every time Zoey rolled her eyes at a “slut” before proceeding to exhibit those exact behaviors to her own romantic interest, I just shrugged my shoulders and attributed it to potential character development. Nostalgia had blinded me to the constant slut-shaming and blatant misogyny.

I found the main character, Zoey, endearing and was mildly impressed with the LGBT, feminist, and racial representation in the novel. The first book, Marked, was honestly a delight for me to read. I decided to give the series a try because I’m a good friend like that and also technically it's a 'vampyre' series, not 'vampire' because the authors were going for originality? A full decade after the first book’s release, my friend Tori and I were discussing trashy YA novels we read when we were in middle school and she mentioned the series.

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