Vampire Academy - Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy - Richelle Mead

Pages: 332
Publisher: Penguin Books
Release Date: 2nd July 2009

Other Titles in the Series: Frostbite (UK - 06/08/09), Shadow Kiss, Blood Promise (25/08/09)

Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies..

Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with an unbreakable bond to the earth’s magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest and most dangerous 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 her one of them.

After two years of illicit freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir’s Academy, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. Rose will continue her Dhampir education. Lissa will go back to being Queen of the elite Moroi social scene. And both girls will resume breaking Academy hearts.

Fear made Lissa and Rose run away from St. Vladimir’s - inside the Academy’s iron gates, their world is even more fraught with danger. Here, the cutthroat ranks of the Moroi perform unspeakable rituals, and their secretive nature and love of the night creates an enigmatic world full of social complexities. Rose and Lissa must navigate through this dangerous world, confront the temptation of forbidden romance, and never once let their guard down, lest the Strigoi make Lissa one of them forever…

Vampire Academy is the brilliantly compelling first in a series that I absolutely loved.

The variety of vampire lore that authors imagine never fails to amaze me. I don’t think I’ve read two different authors that use the same lore. Richelle Mead’s vampires are some of the most individual that I’ve come across with their feeders, elemental magic and different types of vampires. The Dhampir’s, Moroi and Strigoi vampires allowed lots of conflict at the Academy that was great to read about and set up some brilliant possibilities for a plot line. But the element of the lore that fascinated me most is Lissa and Rose’s bond.

Rose is a fantastic main character. She is feisty, strong and very clever. Her sarcastic, and usually rude, comebacks had me giggling aloud to myself and wishing that I could think of things like that on the spot. Rose’s characteristics also made her very vulnerable to rumours and ridicule from the other students at the Academy which I thought that she handled brilliantly. It was great that she also had to deal with the problems of a normal seventeen-year-old girl such as boys and dealing with the Queen Bee.

One of these problems was Dimitri. A nice problem, though! I know I talk about ‘the guy’ a lot in my reviews, but there’s nearly always a guy worth writing about! Dimitri reminded me of Jace from The Mortal Instruments; a strong, silent warrior-type with a heart that a girl would give a limb for. He’s a very complicated character that I hope to see a lot more of as the series goes on.

I loved Vampire Academy so much that I ordered the rest of the series while I was only half way through the book! I highly recommend it.

Sophie