Simple, Slang-filled, Smart
The style of Marked helps us get a pretty accurate mental image of what's going on, even if it's not always terribly detail-oriented. What's more, since it's narrated by our teenage heroine Zoey, a lot of the story gets filtered through teen slang (without being dumbed down).
For instance, when Zoey first meets Aphrodite, here's the description we get of her:
She was a tiny blonde and darn near perfect. Actually, she reminded me of a young version of Sarah Jessica Parker (who I don't like, by the by—she's just so… so… annoying and unnaturally perky). (8.6)
Does this give us a sense of how Aphrodite looks and acts? Sure. Does the writing linger on every detail of her appearance, from the shape of her nose, chin, and eyes to the precise length of her hair? Nope. So the writing style is clear, simple, and to the point.
While Zoey herself doesn't use a lot of four-letter words, other characters do; Zoey's more likely to say hell or jeesh, though. And then we've got these gems from Zoey, like how one of Aphrodite's statements "was as fake and cold as Pamela Anderson's humongously huge boobs" (8.14). Ha.
For all her slang, though, Zoey's clearly pretty smart, and her word choice occasionally reminds us of this. When she's trying to keep Heath from seeing her Mark, she describes her behavior as "normal and nonchalant" (2.11). Do you think she'd use words like nonchalant if she were stupid? We don't think so either. And now we'd like to nonchalantly meander on to a different section of this learning guide.