Early Book Review: House of Night: Legacy by PC Cast, Kristin Cast, Kent Dalian and Joelle Jones

House of Night: Legacy by PC Cast, Kristin Cast, Kent Dalian and Joelle Jones is a young adult graphic novel that works as a companion to the House of Night series, which began with Marked. This graphic novel, collecting the five issues of a mini-series, will be released on July 17 2012. The series, and the graphic novel, centers on Zoey Redbird. She had been a normal high school student, worrying about fitting in and family issues, until the day she was marked as a vampire fledgling. This sets off new family and friends problems, and a completely different set of people to try and get along with. The graphic novel covers some of the story we did not get to see in the novels, stories of vampires in history and lessons Zoey needs to learn to be the best leader and vampire she can. House of Night: Legacy follows Zoey and her fledgling friends as the study The Fledgling Handbook and learn some fascinating history while forging a higher understanding of who they can become.

House of Night: Legacy is a solid graphic novel. The artwork and coloring is just plain pretty, and the story was not simply a rehash what I had already read in the novel format. I saw a brief preview of the graphic novel quite awhile ago, and my opinion has not changed much. To see my first take on the subject, you can see my thoughts on the preview here. The story, the new depth, and the ideas are good. I enjoyed getting a more detailed look at the history of the House of Night. I liked getting to see the lessons that Zoey learned, which directly effect her later actions and choices within the book series.

However, I thought the portrayals of the characters were all just a little too perfect. Everyone's hair was flawless, even when they were close to death or mid-battle. The perfectly cocked hips and posed bodies stuck me more as an Ambercrombie and Fitch advertisement that images of teens struggling with some big issues. This might not be a problem for those that have not formed solid mental images of the characters already, or those that have not read the books at all. However, I found it a more than little frustrating and quite distracting. If I could have taken the dialogue and story without the artwork I would have, but then it would not be a graphic novel.

I would recommend House of Night: Legacy to readers that think they might want to read the series, but need on more reason to do so. In fact, I highly recommend the novels, but not so much the graphic novels. I think that die hard fans on the series will want to at least see the graphic novel, but they might want to borrow it from the library or a friend instead of buying. Some fans might adore the graphic novels, and find the very attractive artwork less distracting than I. I did love the story, so I will most likely be borrowing future volumes from the library so I can continue the storyline. However, they will not be joining the novel format in my permanent collection.