Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead: Book Review!

Hello, everyone! I'm back with another book review. It's time for a "fun" book, and today I'm reviewing Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. Of course, I wanted to read this book before I went to see the movie (which I did manage to accomplish). Now that I've read it, let's get on with the review!

Vampire Academy is the first of the Vampire Academy Series. As with any beginning of a series, this book gives us a lot of information about the world we're about to encounter. Specifically, this world contains vampires, but they don't call them "vampires." The good vampires are the Moroi. They drink blood like any other vampire, but they don't kill people. Each individual Moroi can also do magic with a specific element. They can either control earth, water, fire, or air.

Now there are also bad vampires called Strigoi. Strigoi are vampires who have killed when drinking blood making them part of the undead category. They become obsessed with getting blood, especially from the Moroi. They also cannot use their magic anymore.

Lastly there are the Dhampirs. They are, for a lack for a better term, the offspring of humans and Moroi. They are strong and fast, and they cannot reproduce among each other. Because of that, they feel the need to keep the Moroi safe in order to keep the Dhampir race alive.

Lissa is a Moroi that hasn't specialized with any element, which makes her a little weird. She's also able to do things that other vampires can't do. She is also the last living member of the Dragomir family, which makes her sort of like a princess. Her best friend is Rose. She's a Dhampir and has sworn herself to keeping Lissa safe. Lissa and Rose have a bond that let's Rose know if Lissa is in trouble, which makes them a good team. However, we first encounter Rose and Lissa on the run. They took off from the Moroi and Dhampir school, St. Vladimir's Academy, because they weren't safe there. They are brought back to the school to face friends and foes, and figure out what is actually going on with Lissa.

Yes, that was a super long summary, but it's needed. I could have added three more paragraphs, but I decided to keep it "short." The entire story is told from Rose's point of view, and she nothing like I've ever read before. She's sassy, sarcastic, and knows just how awesome she is. She's confident, but she's also really concerned about her best friend, which makes for a really dynamic character.

Lissa is also pretty cool. She's dealing with a lot considering her family is dead, and she can do some weird magic. But she's also really charismatic and almost motherly to Rose. They are like each other's family. They are like each other's sister. That's something that I haven't seen in young adult novels. The friendship aspect usually gets thrown to the wayside in order to play up the romance. While there is some romance, you never the lose the importance of Lissa and Rose's friendship.

I really love the world that Mead has created. It's also something that I've never seen before. While I've read some books about vampires, this is the first that I've read about vampires as something other than a curse. It makes the book all the more interesting and compelling.

Another thing I love about this book is that while this book has romance, the main plot is about the relationship of two best girlfriends. They look out for each other and are really strong female characters, something that many young adult readers complain about the genre.

As much as I want to continue on about how much I really loved this book, which I totally could, I need to be a little critical about it. The only major concern I had with the book was that there was a lot of information thrown to the reader all at once. It's a lot to take in, but it is kind of necessary. With all of that in mind, I will give this book four charmed necklaces out of five.

That's it for this review! I would just like to say that I actually read this book a couple of weeks ago, and I promised myself that I would finish the book and write the review immediately. However, I didn't expect to love this series so much that I would just zoom through the rest of the series. So, as of this moment, I have read all of the Vampire Academy series, and I will be review them very soon. Hopefully tonight. 

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