Book Review: Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy #1) by Richelle Mead

Summary:

St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger. . . .

Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever.

Review:

Vampires---check.  Boarding school---check.  Teenage kids pulling pranks on each other and bucking the system---check.  Forbidden love---sign us up!  The forbidden love gets us every time and Vampire Academy is no exception.

Vampire Academy is a strong start to another great YA series.  This one rates up there with Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse series.  There's a little more grit than Twilight, but Vampire Academy is definitely still on a YA level.  I like that the plot is more complex than your typical YA book.  I also like that Mead introduces the two types of vampires.  Not that we didn't already have a concept of those (think Twilight's golden-eyed Cullen "vegetarians" versus the red-eyed "bad" vampires) but I like Mead's twist.

Thank you to my cousin Maggie for recommending this series to me!  Richelle Mead says on her website that there will be six books total...four are out at this time.  I read it for the first time last year and am reading the first four books again in preparation for the May 18th release of Spirit Bound, book five. 

Just One Gripe:

Mead just jumps right in to the story.  On our first read through (until about 100 pages in), we misunderstood the bond between Rose and Lissa and thought they were...well, you read it and decide for yourselves!

The Best Thing About This Book:

I like that there are two female protagonists, but Mead keeps the book written in the first person from Rose's point of view.

Appropriate for a younger audience:

Probably.  There's a couple of PG-13 scenes, but on the whole it's a pretty clean book.

Score:
Characters:  5/5
Plot:  5/5
Setting/Imagery:  4/5
Originality:  4/5
Ending:  5/5
Total Score:  23/25

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