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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Sexual content, Blood, Stalking, Classism
85% uneventful, 10% interesting story, 5% i don't remember. I don't regret reading, but i'm also not super amped to read more into the series.
Dimitri is the most interesting character, but unfortunately the book doesn't give us nearly enough of him.
It's not great.
Dimitri is the most interesting character, but unfortunately the book doesn't give us nearly enough of him.
It's not great.
4 stars.
This was...really really good. Color me surprised! I expected something fun and easy, which don’t get me wrong this book was, but it was also so well balanced with surprising characters and just-off-beat character arcs. I LOVED Rose. Her brash character was both good and bad at times but it was consistent and lent itself so well to the story. Her and Dimitri...I mean...yes please. But this book also acknowledges the inherent issues with their attraction and handles it responsibly and I’m BEGGING more books to do that.
I guessed literally every plot twist in the book (look forward to my reading vlog) but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the journey. I’m hooked and want to read the next in the series ASAP.
This was...really really good. Color me surprised! I expected something fun and easy, which don’t get me wrong this book was, but it was also so well balanced with surprising characters and just-off-beat character arcs. I LOVED Rose. Her brash character was both good and bad at times but it was consistent and lent itself so well to the story. Her and Dimitri...I mean...yes please. But this book also acknowledges the inherent issues with their attraction and handles it responsibly and I’m BEGGING more books to do that.
I guessed literally every plot twist in the book (look forward to my reading vlog) but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the journey. I’m hooked and want to read the next in the series ASAP.
I hate it when book characters talk about their boobs. 😂
FIRST REVIEW / MAR 16, 2014
I read this in a day and a half!!
Admittedly, I kind of sped through because I’d seen the movie (which, now that I’ve read the book, I can tell was an incredibly, incredibly faithful, practically scene-by-scene rendition of this book). It was a lot of fun, I love Rose, I love her with Lissa, I love her with Dimitri. Unabashed guilty pleasure reading enjoyment, GO.
---------------------------------
SECOND REVIEW / SEP 14, 2022
I’m embarking on a full series reread because of the new TV show (!!) starting tomorrow, and because it’s been a good few years since I read these books. Now that I’m older, it’s really nice to revisit this series. It’s pretty simplistic YA vampire fare, it’s true, with our wisecracking snarky flirtatious lead who’s defs indebted to Buffy as an inspiration — but I love what this book does with it.
The best friendship between Rose and Lissa is the beating heart of the whole book, and it’s fantastic to see so much focus and importance placed on their relationship, and that it takes priority over literally everything, including Rose’s romance. There’s a fairly big cast of characters, so the scope never feels like it’s too laser-focused on, say, a core Rose + Lissa + Dimitri trio; Rose also has friendships with other characters, so it feels like she has a realistically broad social circle.
She also has some believable flaws which lead to her making some frustrating mistakes, but I appreciate it, since it means she’s not infallible. She’s not too slow on the uptake when it comes to puzzling out some of the lore mysteries, too. The inevitable romance between Rose and Dimitri is well-paced, you can really see their connection and why they like each other, and both characters behave realistically about it, and the narrative doesn’t forget about their age difference either.
There’s also some nice focus on Lissa’s mental health: her depression, her self-harming coping mechanism, the importance of a support network plus medication, all of which I rarely get to see in genre YA.
The setting of St. Vladimir’s Academy, and the worldbuilding about the different types of vampire/dhampir plus their system of magic, is neat. The book is compulsively readable. I also like how it dangles some mysteries and backstory reveals just out of reach, and how both Rose & Lissa know more than the reader does and the narration actually withholds some information; it’s surprisingly patient and doesn’t just dump all the exposition on you at once.
All in all, just solid, and I can’t recommend it enough for YA fans. Vampire Academy knows its melodramatic tropes and it knows it’s playing in a crowded field, genre-wise, but all of its tropes are so well-executed that I’m just such a fan. Love this series. It’s helping shake me out of a reading rut, too, which is great!
I read this in a day and a half!!
Admittedly, I kind of sped through because I’d seen the movie (which, now that I’ve read the book, I can tell was an incredibly, incredibly faithful, practically scene-by-scene rendition of this book). It was a lot of fun, I love Rose, I love her with Lissa, I love her with Dimitri. Unabashed guilty pleasure reading enjoyment, GO.
---------------------------------
SECOND REVIEW / SEP 14, 2022
I’m embarking on a full series reread because of the new TV show (!!) starting tomorrow, and because it’s been a good few years since I read these books. Now that I’m older, it’s really nice to revisit this series. It’s pretty simplistic YA vampire fare, it’s true, with our wisecracking snarky flirtatious lead who’s defs indebted to Buffy as an inspiration — but I love what this book does with it.
The best friendship between Rose and Lissa is the beating heart of the whole book, and it’s fantastic to see so much focus and importance placed on their relationship, and that it takes priority over literally everything, including Rose’s romance. There’s a fairly big cast of characters, so the scope never feels like it’s too laser-focused on, say, a core Rose + Lissa + Dimitri trio; Rose also has friendships with other characters, so it feels like she has a realistically broad social circle.
She also has some believable flaws which lead to her making some frustrating mistakes, but I appreciate it, since it means she’s not infallible. She’s not too slow on the uptake when it comes to puzzling out some of the lore mysteries, too. The inevitable romance between Rose and Dimitri is well-paced, you can really see their connection and why they like each other, and both characters behave realistically about it, and the narrative doesn’t forget about their age difference either.
There’s also some nice focus on Lissa’s mental health: her depression, her self-harming coping mechanism, the importance of a support network plus medication, all of which I rarely get to see in genre YA.
The setting of St. Vladimir’s Academy, and the worldbuilding about the different types of vampire/dhampir plus their system of magic, is neat. The book is compulsively readable. I also like how it dangles some mysteries and backstory reveals just out of reach, and how both Rose & Lissa know more than the reader does and the narration actually withholds some information; it’s surprisingly patient and doesn’t just dump all the exposition on you at once.
All in all, just solid, and I can’t recommend it enough for YA fans. Vampire Academy knows its melodramatic tropes and it knows it’s playing in a crowded field, genre-wise, but all of its tropes are so well-executed that I’m just such a fan. Love this series. It’s helping shake me out of a reading rut, too, which is great!
The support female, best friend Lissa, is an idiot. The FMC relationship with her is so cringe.
At least the FMC character development was good.
At least the FMC character development was good.
This book is absolutely addicting. I can't get enough of this story and the characters and the beautifully, heart wrenching romances. Five stars doesn't give justice to how fantastic this book was.
definitely running up against the YAness of this and I'm not the target demographic but also I find it fails to really deliver on what it is presenting. decently fun read.