Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Review: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1)
Title: Vampire Academy

Series: Vampire Academy #1

Prequel story: Sunshine

Author: Richelle Mead

Publication date: August 2007

Published by: Razorbill

Source: Borrowed from library

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Buy it: Amazon | Book Depository

Synopsis:

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.

My rating: ★★★★☆

I’m not a big fan of vampire books, so I usually tend to stay away from them. And I know I sound like a hypocrite ‘cause I used to be a huge Twilight freak (don’t worry, that phase of my life has passed :P lol). But the fact that vampires drink human blood is what bothers me the most. And since the Cullen’s in Twilight were “vegetarians” and only drank animal blood, I was okay with that. Now let’s get one thing straight, it’s not that blood grosses me out or bothers me; I’m going into the medical field, so I obviously have to be okay around blood. In fact, I have seen a real life open heart surgery and a C-section (and by the way, both were totally awesome and an amazing experience), so no, blood is not a problem for me. I just don’t like that vampires need human blood to survive. *shivers* But that’s just my opinion :)

However, I was recommended this book and was told that it was a great series…so I agreed to read it. And much to my surprise, I actually liked it!!! :D

Let’s start off with some vampire terminology:

1. Moroi: born vampires, alive, mortal, and can do elemental magic (air, water, earth, fire). There are 12 Moroi families who are royalty.

2. Strigoi: undead, immortal, can do elemental magic no longer (which is why they cannot go into sunlight anymore), and they are made into vampires (2 different ways):
a. Strigoi can forcefully turn humans, dhampirs, or Moroi with a single bite.
b. A Moroi can be turned by choice if they purposely kill another person while feeding.

3. Dhampirs: half human, half vampire. Originally were born from Moroi mixing with humans. But dhampirs can’t reproduce with each other or humans…only with Moroi, resulting in dhampirs. Dhampirs are trained as guardians to protect Moroi from Strigoi.

Rose is a dhampir and best friend of Lissa, a Moroi. They ran away from St. Vladimir’s Academy (the boarding school for vampires they attended) because they felt like Lissa was in trouble. However, they were eventually found and returned to school. Bummer. Rose got in major trouble when she returned for running away from school with Lissa, who is also royalty :O Not only that, but Lissa might still be in trouble…uh-oh!

A few specific things I liked about the book:

1. Rose. She is one badass character! I really liked her. In a way she kinda reminded me of Faythe from the Shifters series by Rachel Vincent… they are both kind of reckless, they can take care of themselves as well as others, they are strong, and they can both kick serious butt. To sum it up, they are badass!

2. I really like surprising twists in a book, and this one didn’t disappoint. I was seriously confused throughout most of the book until the very end, that is :)


3. And believe it or not, all that school gossip. I truthfully cannot remember what it’s like being a high school student. And it’s not because I’m super old or anything, ‘cause I graduated from high school June 2010…so almost a year ago. My last two years of high school I was in this program called Running Start; I went took college classes at the college while still in high school. For both years I only had 2 classes at the high school and the rest were at the college. And I really missed having that normal high school experience. That’s why I like living it through books :) Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret going to college at young age (if I remember correctly, I was 16), it was actually very helpful. Plus, sometimes I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with all that high school drama. But other times I think otherwise.

4. All the hot guys in the book ;) there were sooo many, oh boy, I don’t even know where to start, lol

5. The fact that Lissa has the ability to heal. If I were to have a super power, it would be that :)

But there were also some things I didn’t like:

1. The fact that Rose liked the vampire bite. Again, this is another thing that bothers me about vampire books. Vampire saliva is like a drug; it gets you all loopy and makes you feel insanely good. Don’t like that. Even Rose said that she didn’t like that, and that it was almost a dirty thing. See! lol

2. Because I really, really liked Christian…a lot, I hated how Rose treated him. Sure she wanted to protect Lissa, but she didn’t have to be so rude to Christian! WTF! I’m glad she changed her mind in the end though :)

3. I have heard about vampires who can manipulate people’s minds, you know, persuasion. But I didn’t like how in this book they called it ‘compulsion.’ Idk, it just sounds weird! I like persuasion better :P

Overall, it was a good book :) I will definitely be reading the rest of the series.


Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a comment! :)

4 comments:

  1. Compulsion is a term often used in vampire novels. If you get into more the adult paranormal romance novels you'll see it more frequently. To be honest I haven't come across a book yet which calls it persuasion. In my personal opinion the word compulsion fits better. With persuasion someone may not really want to do something but they end up agreeing to it. It's like that poor sucker who has issues saying no and even though they don't want to spend their Friday night babysitting the neighbors monster kid for free, they end up doing it anyway because they're just horrible at saying no. Compulsion there's no agreement implied, they do it whether they want to or not or whether they agree to or not. The idea is that even that spineless I can't say no person isn't going to do something awful like murder or commit suicide, they couldn't be persuaded to do something like that, however even the strongest of people could be forced into doing these horrible things under compulsion. It's not supposed to feel nice, it supposed to feel violated almost like a form of mind rape you might say.

    BTW the cover model could be Angelina Jolie's twin imo. Another cover that has a model that looks exactly like an actress, The Iron Fey Series and the star of Fringe.

    BTW I wouldn't be embarrassed about being a high school graduate that still likes young adult novels. I'm 30 and I've become hooked on the genre. What weird is when I was a young adult I didn't really like any of the young adult books because there just wasn't enough flesh to them. Some of the best writers today are in the Young Adult Genres that's why most of the blockbuster films based on movies are based on books in the Young Adult Genre.

    That being said I really enjoyed your review. I have this book on my shelves to be read, it came in the mail today. I'm even more excited to read it now than I was before. Thanks for taking the time to review it.

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  2. Yeah, I guess you're right. Its just that I'm not used to that word...but since I'll be reading the rest of the series soon, i guess I'll have to :P lol

    And I'm not embarrassed about still liking YA...technically I'm still a young adult, lol. I really like reading them 'casue I feel like I can live that somewhat normal high school experience that I didnt have. But If I were to go back in time and choose, I'd still choose going to college than staying in high school :P I know several mom and evan grandmothers who read YA. I wish my mom was cool like that, lol

    Thank you for taking the time and reading this :) I'm sure you'll enjoy the book.

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  3. i loved this book! your review is awesome

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