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lamerthanfiction 's review for:
Vampire Academy: The Untold Stories
by Richelle Mead
4,5 stars
I hesitated to read Vampire Academy for the longest time. I didn't really know what it was about except that it's something about Vampires (surprise!) and that automatically made me think that it was basically Twilight in a boarding school. The covers didn't help much either. Still, I had high expectations because everyone seems to really love this series. And I have to say, those expectations were met. Vampire Academy is far from just being "like Twilight".
The first thing that pleasantly suprised me was how complex the story and the world is. It's not just your good old vampires you know and either love or hate, there are different types of them who have different attributes. The Moroi are basically the "good" vampires and are able to control one of the four elements fire, water, earth and air. The Strigoi are the "bad" ones who are incredibly strong and fast. The last group, the Dhampirs, are basically half-vampires with heightened senses who are trained to guard the Moroi. There is so much more complexity to this world which I really really liked and made it something unique. I have read a couple of vampire books but no one could make them as interesting as Richelle Mead.
Our main character, Rose, is just kick-ass and I really liked reading about her. She is a Dhampir and soon to become the guardian of Lissa, her best friend and a Moroi. The relationship and character dynamic between these two where so real and interesting not just because of their telephatic bond. They are not just friend but although a kind of family for each other that always wants to protect their members. Although they're so close to each other, they are still very different from each other.
Rose is reckless and adventurous and I liked that she was so confident about herself and her looks. Lissa is the more restrained, reasonable and insecure and tries to please everyone. But still their friendship worked really well for me. One thing that I also really liked about the characters in this book was that they seemed so "real", just like you and me. They just weren't perfect, they all had their good and bad sides and made decisions I wouldn't agree with. The author also included some more adult themes like sex and drug abuse which made everything more realistic to me. The characters in the book are young adults and I feel like those are things that a lot of them experiment with.
In the romance department there was a tiny bit of insta-love going on but I still enjoyed it overall. As I said before, the relationships felt real and were just fun to read. Also, there is no love triangle which is always a plus for me.
I thought the writing was so so good and definitely fitting to the story and easy to follow. All the world building and story details were just perfectly woven into the story. There were no big chunks of text on description or explanation all at once and sometimes terms were mentioned and explained later when their explanation was really needed which I really enjoyed.
One of the problems I had was due to all the school drama that happened. Sometimes they were just fighting about really unimportant stuff which had me annoyed here and there. Still, it also made it feel like you were in a real high school.
To summarize it all, I had an amazing time reading Vampire Academy. It was far from what I had expected it to be and so much more interesting. The characters and the world had me hooked from the beginning and if you haven't picked this series up after all those years, you should definitely do so. I can't wait to get my hands on Frostbite.
I hesitated to read Vampire Academy for the longest time. I didn't really know what it was about except that it's something about Vampires (surprise!) and that automatically made me think that it was basically Twilight in a boarding school. The covers didn't help much either. Still, I had high expectations because everyone seems to really love this series. And I have to say, those expectations were met. Vampire Academy is far from just being "like Twilight".
The first thing that pleasantly suprised me was how complex the story and the world is. It's not just your good old vampires you know and either love or hate, there are different types of them who have different attributes. The Moroi are basically the "good" vampires and are able to control one of the four elements fire, water, earth and air. The Strigoi are the "bad" ones who are incredibly strong and fast. The last group, the Dhampirs, are basically half-vampires with heightened senses who are trained to guard the Moroi. There is so much more complexity to this world which I really really liked and made it something unique. I have read a couple of vampire books but no one could make them as interesting as Richelle Mead.
Our main character, Rose, is just kick-ass and I really liked reading about her. She is a Dhampir and soon to become the guardian of Lissa, her best friend and a Moroi. The relationship and character dynamic between these two where so real and interesting not just because of their telephatic bond. They are not just friend but although a kind of family for each other that always wants to protect their members. Although they're so close to each other, they are still very different from each other.
Rose is reckless and adventurous and I liked that she was so confident about herself and her looks. Lissa is the more restrained, reasonable and insecure and tries to please everyone. But still their friendship worked really well for me. One thing that I also really liked about the characters in this book was that they seemed so "real", just like you and me. They just weren't perfect, they all had their good and bad sides and made decisions I wouldn't agree with. The author also included some more adult themes like sex and drug abuse which made everything more realistic to me. The characters in the book are young adults and I feel like those are things that a lot of them experiment with.
In the romance department there was a tiny bit of insta-love going on but I still enjoyed it overall. As I said before, the relationships felt real and were just fun to read. Also, there is no love triangle which is always a plus for me.
I thought the writing was so so good and definitely fitting to the story and easy to follow. All the world building and story details were just perfectly woven into the story. There were no big chunks of text on description or explanation all at once and sometimes terms were mentioned and explained later when their explanation was really needed which I really enjoyed.
One of the problems I had was due to all the school drama that happened. Sometimes they were just fighting about really unimportant stuff which had me annoyed here and there. Still, it also made it feel like you were in a real high school.
To summarize it all, I had an amazing time reading Vampire Academy. It was far from what I had expected it to be and so much more interesting. The characters and the world had me hooked from the beginning and if you haven't picked this series up after all those years, you should definitely do so. I can't wait to get my hands on Frostbite.