Published: 2007-2010
Pages: 2,692
Source: Gifted
Rating: 3 Stars
Synopsis for Vampire Academy, Book 1:
Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with a rare gift for harnessing the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest vampires - the ones who never die. The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making Lissa one of them.
After two years of freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fraught with danger... and the Strigoi are always close by.
Rose and Lissa must navigate their dangerous world, confront the temptations of forbidden love, and never once let their guard down, lest the evil undead make Lissa one of them forever...
Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with a rare gift for harnessing the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest vampires - the ones who never die. The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making Lissa one of them.
After two years of freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fraught with danger... and the Strigoi are always close by.
Rose and Lissa must navigate their dangerous world, confront the temptations of forbidden love, and never once let their guard down, lest the evil undead make Lissa one of them forever...
In short: The Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead was an easy and entertaining read, though I would have preferred it to be much higher stakes (no pun intended).
Despite not loving the first Vampire Academy book when I read it two years ago, there was a definite addicting feeling to the story and the promise of more exciting plot-wise action to come, and so I kept reading and have now finished the entire series two years later. I had been hopefully expecting the subsequent books in the series to move away from the largely trivial plot of the first book and delve into a deeper, higher stakes storyline for the rest of the series. And thankfully, it does. Though not to the extent that I had hoped.
I guess what I expect from long over-reaching speculative fiction series like this one, is an epic high stakes plot in which the safety and lives of many are threatened and the hero/heroine has to find a way to vanquish the bad guy despite bad odds. Instead, what I got with the Vampire Academy Series was conflicts that revolve around a very small community of people involving royal vampires and their guardians. The conflicts always seemed so minor to hinge an entire six-book series on and a lot of the time I found myself wondering, "And I should care about this why?"
Thankfully, Richelle Mead did manage to make me care enough about the characters for me to care about where the story was going, at least somewhat. The major conflict of the series revolved around the fate of Rose and Dimitri's relationship and though I much prefer non-romance-centric plots, I did like these characters enough to feel invested in their romance. I do think that perhaps this plot line could have been handled better though, as it was largely played out come the fifth book, Spirit Bound, leaving the final book, Last Sacrifice, rather anti-climactic.
I have no regrets for seeing the series through to the end, however. Overall, despite the often trivial nature of the plot and the poor execution of the storyline, the Vampire Academy Series is a pretty entertaining read. Richelle Mead's writing often comes off as very amateurish and unimpressive to me, and yet at the same time it is this simplistic writing style that makes the series so easily readable. I would have preferred a much higher stakes version of the series, like the other speculative fiction series that I love, but at least it made for an easy and entertaining read.
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