Vampire Academy | Book Review

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book was recommended to me YEARS ago by a good friend, and I just kept putting it off. (Vamps went out of fashion, ya know. And I was trying to keep up with the fads. Are we over dystopias yet?) Anyway, now I'm pissed I put it off so long AND that I missed the movie while it was in theaters! Boo hiss.

Color Me: Bitten and Smitten. I reeeeeeally liked this book. I'm actually completely in likes with this book.

Writing Technique: ★★★1/2 Mead's got good style. I like it. Her pacing is phenomenal. Her prose is clean and engaging, not overdone or over-the-top (which, in the hands of someone else, it totally could have been). A solid B in technique with extra credit points for writing in first person but having a reasonable way of writing about things the narrator shouldn't be able to know. (That Rose-Lissa mind-bond business was actually a great idea.)

Character Development: ★★★★ I can just let out a raging WHOOP at a heroine who isn't a reactionary dyed in the wool introvert?! I'm sooooo bored of introverts. Rose is legit hilarious. Sassy and smart-mouthed and okay...kind of a bitch (character flaw!). She doesn't wait for things to happen. She makes things happen. She's driven... and NOT BY BOYS (for the most part). Her motivation is her super(naturally) close relationship with her best friend. In fact, their friendship is awesome. Not perfect. But very admirable. i loved this chick. I loved watching her grow up and take responsibility and learn... stuff. Also Lissa (the best friend) had some growing and learning to do too. I liked her, but she's mostly a quiet introvert time and blahblahblah. Although to be fair, she did some crazy dark ish in a power craze. So yeah...

Plot/Story Development: ★★★1/2 We got lore, we got legends, we got a weird vocab that has a lot of -oi words. But I bought it. Great world building here. Suspense. Stakes. Foreshadowing. Plot twists. I thought it was fun, if a little predictable. While some storylines were closed, others were left open to be explored, I assume, in the following books. Yay.

Message/Theme: ★★★ Friendship, and the lengths we'll go to for those we love. Also mental illness, depression, self-harm, darker natures. And--YA classic tropes--the power of juicy gossip, the craze of raging hormones, and the inevitable journey of self-discovery.

Overall: ★★★★ Mostly because I really couldn't put it down. It was addicting. The story itself might have been a little lean. But it was tight. And funny. And different than other paranormal stories. Not really a romance. And I was surprised and delighted. Four delicious stars.

NOW I MUST GO SEE THE MOVIE. But I think it looks awesome.

Recommendation: The SHIVER series by Maggie Stiefvater (duh. obviously, but not really because they are super similar.)



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