Review - Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ebook, 332 pages

Published November 2013 by Razorbill (first published August 16th 2007)

Source: Netgalley

Synopsis:

'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 . . .'

My Thoughts:

I was kind of excited to start reading this book as it was one that I was always interested in years ago when it first came out but never got around to reading at the time.

Unfortunately I now wish I'd been able to read it when I was a few years younger because I probably would have loved and appreciated it a lot more back then to how I did now.

Putting this aside, I still found this book a pretty good read even though it was full of teen drama and gossip which isn't really my cup of tea nowadays.

There was some interesting character development and it contained some refreshing twists on the usual vampire culture and traditions that made it appealing in its own way.

I liked Rose's fiery personality and found her enjoyable as a character. To me she did act and talk a little beyond the teenager she was supposed to be though and I had to keep reminding myself of the ages of the main characters a few times because of the way they were all portrayed in general.

Lissa seemed a little too submissive and weak as a character to me and I literally felt like shaking her a few times in the book as the story moved along.

I'm definitely interested in reading more of this series now though, if not purely to catch up on how Dimitri develops as a character. He's certainly the most intriguing one and leaves you wanting more by the end.