Book Review: Vampire Academy

Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: August 16, 2007
Pages: 332
Read it in: 3 days

Summary: 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 gaurdians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fruaght 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...

LC's Take: 

Wow. Now this was one sexy, exciting, and suspenseful book! Hmmm... what did I like most about it? The sizzling hott characters? The completely addicting story line? The irresistible drama? I can't decide! Vampire Academy was pretty much just one big guilty pleasure from beginning to end.

Rose Hathaway was an awesome main character-- snarky and funny, she definitely added humor to the plot without getting annoying, and the whole story was that much better when reading it from her point of view. (After all there's nothing worse than having to read from the POV of a boring character!) I also loved Rose's loyalty to Lissa. Yes, she's her guardian, so it makes sense that she's protective, but they're also best friends, and you could tell that Rose genuinely cared about Lissa and worried about her self-destructive tendencies.

Speaking of, Lissa was another great main character-- she kept the story interesting because she was so unpredictable. First she was very kind, loving and sweet, but then she also had this very dark, scary, out-of-control side to her-- these two warring sides made Lissa a complex character who you want to read and learn more about.

OK, and can we spend a small moment here talking about Dmitri?? **swoon!**  I mean girls, like-- whoa, talk about hottest book character EVER, I totally have the biggest book crush on this guy lol. He's Russian, he's apparently got an amazing body, he's sensitive, aaaaand he kills evil vampires for a living-- what's not to love? Yep, definitely looking forward to reading-- and gushing-- more about Dmitri in the future! Also, I really want to see how the whole "forbidden love" thing with Rose goes down...

So my only one small complaint about this book was all the typos in it. I know, I know this has nothing to do with the actual story and is more about final editing and all, but I just find it to be so distracting, I literally stopped at one point to have a small internal rant about why someone didn't proofread before publishing! This just bothers me to no end. One or two typos, not a big deal, but having over a dozen blatant typos in one book, that just seems sloppy. OK, I'm done with that rant, we can continue.

Vampire Academy really was one of those books you can just devour, fly through in a couple sittings, and be ready for more when you get to the end. Everyone told me I had to read this book, and I'm so glad I did! It had everything you could ask for-- characters you care about, romance, forbidden love, suspense, humor, and twists at the end. This is a series I will definitely be continuing in the future!

LC's Rating:

I'll say what everyone else said to me: If you haven't read Vampire Academy yet, you should! This book had everything that makes for a great story, and it was so much fun to read. A great plot line and interesting characters had me hooked from beginning to end!