Vampire Academy, by Richelle Mead

(4/5 stars)

There are so many reasons why I picked up this book. First off, I had heard nothing but praise about it for a long time (although I was always skeptical, I blame the title...). Second, the movie is coming out tomorrow, and if you know me, I love a great YA book turned movie adaptation. Third, I really like vampires and I don't care how many books I've read about them, I will always pick up another. Trust me when I say this, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when this book exceeded my expectations! Yay! A good vampire book is like a narwhal. They exist, but they're so hard to find (at least in my opinion). 

What I liked: This is a whole new take on the vampire mythology (which I actually studied for one my classes), and it's invigorating. Mead paints a beautiful picture of how this world works. It's not a world of vampires versus vampire hunters or whatever, instead it's nice (I use that term loosely because there are always mean people) vampires that age (Moroi) versus evil dead vampires who like to kill the nice vampires (Strigoi). And the nice, cool vampires have guardians (Dhampirs) who are really bad-ass and awesome, like our main character Rose. Rose who I absolutely adore and may be my new favorite protagonist. Sure she's reckless, but she's fiercely loyal and I respect that. 

So the story is really cool and the world building is awesome, but that's not the only reason I loved this book. I also liked the dynamics between all the characters. Whether it was mean girl, Mia, or misunderstood Christian, each character brought something different to the table. I could also talk about Dimitri for days on end, but I won't. I'll just say that I cannot wait to see where this relationship goes, like for real though. Finally, I think my absolute favorite thing about this book was Rose and Lissa's friendship. That's what this book is really about- the strong bond of friendship and how they'll do anything for each other. It's probably one of the best friendships I've seen in YA fiction.

What I didn't like: I'm picky, but there were times when Lissa was frustratingly annoying. I just wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her during the times when she was being all wishy-washy. I also wasn't a big fan at how important the school drama was and felt like it shouldn't have taken such a front seat position. Rose and Lissa have much bigger problems to deal with than ugly rumors. That was annoying, especially all the slut-shaming rumors that were constantly being spread. Ugh. I know that's how high school is, but I felt like every other chapter of this book was someone calling Rose a slut for something and that bothered me (but that's a whole other rant for a whole other time). 

Regardless, I loved reading this book because it was different. It wasn't what I expected and I really should have given it more credit before. But now, I'm ready to get my hands on the sequel and the one after that and the one after that (there are 6 books in the series so I'll be busy for a while)! And I can't wait to see the movie, which I will of course let you guys know what I think of as soon as I see it!

-Annie