Frostbite by Richelle Mead: Book Review!

Hello, everyone! I'm back with another fun book review! It's the second book of the Vampire Academy series, Frostbite by Richelle Mead. I would just like to preface this review with a little confession. I read this book a couple of weeks ago, and I loved it so much that I could not stop to review it before finishing the series. So, I may be a little rusty, but these books have been on my mind for two weeks now. I think I can do this review justice. With all of that said, let's get to the review!

This book continues the story of Rose and Lissa, with a few more complications. Strigoi attacks are becoming more common. Lissa is having problems choosing her magic over her sanity. Rose's absentee mother has come to the academy. Both Rose and Lissa are dealing with their love lives, and everyone decides to go to the Court for the holiday season. There Rose meets Adrian, nephew to the Queen and quite the ladies' man. But everything comes to the climax when some of the novices decide to take the battle to the Strigoi. Rose has to make a choice to save her friends, but at what cost?

So, this book gave me a lot of feels. Rose is dealing with her own relationship problems and the fact that she is still somewhat behind the rest of the novices. Then her mother comes along. I didn't like her mother in the first book, mostly because the only thing when saw of her was an email. In this book, we see their relationship, which is rocky at best and hostile at worst. It's interesting to see how much their relationship changes from the beginning to the end of the novel.

Speaking of character development, Rose grows a lot during this novel. The ending (which I shall not be spoiling) really forces Rose to see what the real world and being a guardian is like. She becomes more responsible, and she acts like someone who has really experienced war. In the beginning, she was gung-ho about going out and fighting Strigoi. After facing them, she understands that this isn't about glory, it's about keeping people safe. It's really amazing to see this kind of character development.

I also have to mention the cool new spirit powers. We know of compulsion and healing, but now there is dream walking. It's an interesting take on using spirit. It's also a bit crucial to the novel. It's always fun to see the lore of a particular book to expand and grow as people read on.

So, let's talk about Dimitri. I love our Russian guardian. He's cool under pressure and sophisticated, and we see a little more of his history in this novel. I like how things get a little more complicated with him and Rose. As much as I really like them together, there's a big concern with their age difference and him being Rose's mentor. I like how his history with Tasha effects the story. It shows how different Rose and Dimitri are in terms of maturity.

The one minor critique I have with this novel is the prologue. It seems to be a bit of a throwaway in the way of explaining what happened in the first book. It tells of all of the lore and why each of the characters are important. I didn't feel like it was all that needed (granted, I read all of the books back to back). With all of that in mind, I will give this book four and a half rusty swords out of five.

That's it for this review! I'll be back soon with another Vampire Academy related book review. If you want to follow the blog, add your email to the Subscribe Box down below. You can add me to your circles by clicking the Google+ button off to the right. If you want to be up to date on the blog or ridiculousness about my life, you can follow me on twitter @KK_Donna_Blog. You can follow the tumblr dedicated to the blog, and you can find it at this link. That's it for now! Read on, lovelies! I'll see y'all next post!