Last Sacrifice

Last Sacrifice, the last installment of the Vampire Academy novels.
I've been engrossed in these novels a little more than I should've, but I don't mind a more frivolous read now and then, especially when the days grow warmer.

This novel doesn't take place in St-Vladimir, the vampire academy which set out the be main stage for this franchise.
Instead, it starts at court, with Rose being falsely imprisoned for murdering the queen.
After a few chapters she escapes with the help of her friends. Sydney, the alchemist she met in Russia, and Dimitri are her companions while she is being hidden away.
Meanwhile, Lissa and her friends try to find out who is really responsible for Tatiana's murder.

Rose has to trust her friends to ensure her future, but in the meantime she has a quest of her own that takes her all over america in search for answers.
She even has a alliance with Viktor, the villain she helped set free to get answers for Dimitri's restoration to dhampir life. Together with Dimitri and Sydney they search for someone who will change Lissa's life for ever.

This novel doesn't pack as much as the rest of them, not that they've been impressive to begin with. It has always been a light read.
But Last Sacrifice feels a little rushed. I would've liked a little more inner reflection instead of constantly rushing from point a to b.
Rose's ability to see through Lissa's eyes has been tuned a little too perfect in this novel. Everytime she decides to see what Lissa is doing, it's something to do with trying to prove her innocence. It's not realistic for her to switch at the perfect moments.
If Richelle Mead wanted us to follow both ends of the story, she should've told this one from two perspectives. Now it just felt fake.

Still, you don't miss any of the action and it's packed with action and adds a little romance to spice things up.
Of course Rose gets her happy ending. Dimitri and her ultimately get together, how painful it may be for Adrian.
That's what I like about such stories. The happy endings. You expect it to happen, and it mostly does.
In more serious fiction I get annoyed by it, but this particular genre screams happy ending.
It's nothing more than a fairy tale, but I enjoyed reading it.

Spirit Bound

by Richelle Mead.

Yup, Vampire Academy again..

Spirit Bound is the fifth novel in the Vampire Academy franchise. The story that began has begun four novels ago, continues in this one.

Still a world filled with Moroi (nice vampires) and Strigoi (not so nice vampires), guarded by dhampirs (result of humans and Moroi having a good time) and secluded from the rest of the world.
As if that could happen in this day and age..

Our loved heroin, Rose, is once again back at court with her friend Lissa and their entourage. School has ended and now their future hangs in the balance. Rose has become a guardian, but it is still unsure of who she's going to guard. Lissa is just excited to go to college.

But before all that can happen they take on what seems an impossible task to prove a rumor false or true. Can a Strigoi be turned human again?

This novel turns on this balance, with surprising results. Rose should've been careful what she wished for.

Beside the main story line, we do get our handful of little hints and tricks pointing to a greater evil lurking behind the curtain. But it's only breadcrumbs.

As for the people inhabiting this story, Adrian is once again there. As well as Eddie, Mia, Rose's father, Christian and Dimitri.
We also get to know a few new characters, like guardian Mikhail, Adrian's mother Danielle and Hans.

The pacing is fairly quick, but it doesn't span as much ground as I would've liked. As with the other novels a lot of time goes into reflection and action, and rinse repeat rinse repeat.. I found it more irritating this time, since Rose has grown up since the last novel. Now it seemed like that coming of age has all been for nothing. She's still impulsive and acting before thinking, getting her in all sorts of trouble.
Very bad kind of trouble, which sets off the divine intervention. She seems to be as slippery as an eel, because even though she gets reprimanded and punished, she never gets the worst of it. Although she always thinks she's being treated unfairly..

Well, without giving anything away, I do wonder how she will get out of the pickle she got herself in right at the end of the novel..

Only one novel left.. one and a half to be precise.
And then on to something more mature maybe.. or not..

Blood Promise (Review)

Yep, already finished.

Blood Promise is the fourth installment of the Vampire Academy novels which is a little guilty pleasure I have.

The thing with vampires goes way back, all the way to our beloved Buffy and Angel. Not sure what so appealing about creatures of the night doing this thing with your neck..

Blood Promise continues with Rose Hathaway’s search for Dimitri. The love she lost when battling Strigoi (undead vampires). She heard he got turned Strigoi and decides to end his life as he had wished when they talked worst case scenarios.
She goes all the way to Siberia where she meets his family who take her in as if she was one of their own. They grief him together, but Rose is pushed forward towards an end which she isn’t sure of she will survive. When she and Dimitri meet again, events take a surprising turn.

In the meantime, Lissa, Rose’s best friend, bondmate and moroi (living vampire), is struggling herself. She blames herself for Rose leaving and falls in with a bad crowd. She struggles to keep on top of it and in the end gets help from an unexpected corner.

This novel was a breeze to finish. Everything I ranted about that was wrong with the previous novel, was clearly set right with this one. Actually, it diminishes Shadow Kiss more, because now that one feels like a very elaborate intro to Blood Promise. That shouldn’t have happened. I think those two novels would have been best if they were combined into one novel and both edited a little bit tighter. But mo’ books, mo’ money, right?

Still, Rose is growing up and she proves it by making better and better choices. If she can now get herself to stop thinking she won’t love again, that’d be great.
She’s already feeling fuzzy all over when Adrian gets close. I sense a little brickwork has been laid (no pun intended) for the next instalment, because what’s a vampire story without a little romantic seasoning.

Shadow Kiss (Review)

I wish I had been the one to write this story.
It might have been a little more hot and a little more grown up, without the obvious moral lessons. Don't they see what an easy choice it is, to kill one of the lovers right after they finally give in to their love?

Not that I'm a badass writer or anything. Nothing I've begun to write has ever been finished, apart from a few short stories which aren't all too wonderful either. I'm not even being overly pessimistic, I'm just realistic. No publishing material in sight where I'm concerned.

Still, I'm pretty positive I could've written a story like Shadow Kiss, just like I'm positive I could've painted a picture like Van Doesburg:

But I didn't and copying something doesn't make it art.

Shadow Kiss isn't particularly well written and lacked a little emotion, but it still got the job done of wanting to know how it ended.
Since I already started in novel number four Blood Promise, I'd say job well done. That's all a writer wants, to have her stories read.

But why so chaste?
It's a world where life and death is so intermingled, that I'm wondering why Rose and Dimitri are so innocent.
Yes, in the end they do get together, and hence my remark in the beginning.
I get that they want Rose to have a strong personality, to be levelheaded and be anything the average modern teenager is not. She's still a teenager and it would've been more real if she showed it a little more.

But we get what we get, and it's an empty shell of actions.
Anger is a valuable emotion, but you can't write a book about it and expect it to be enough to get your readers to get involved. No one stays mad for that long, not the anger Rose is feeling.
So, I would've changed a little in her behavior. Make her falter a little towards Adrian maybe, since she's a teenager and Dimitri's not readily answering her feelings.
She should've been more insecure and make bad decisions.
But she didn't, although, she consistently tells us she does.

And I know I'm talking from a perspective this book isn't intended for and maybe I wouldn't like my daughter to read this novel if it was me who had written it with all the things stupid teenagers or adults do sometimes. So, in that regard, Richelle Mead didn't do to bad.

For me, this was not enough emotion.

Review of Frostbite

My fourth review in as many days. It must be a record for me, even in the days when I could spend all my time on books.
Still, pretty proud of myself..

But then again, Richelle Mead's second novel in the Vampire Academy series, isn't a hard pill to get through.
I enjoyed reading it, for multiple reasons.
First of all and most important of all, as much as I try to convince myself I'm too old to still care, I love anything with vampires. They may be a bit more bad ass than the vampires in Mead's novels, but it's still vampires, so I'm good.
Second, it's not a book that requires you to think, as it is with most YA novels that feature the supernatural. Sometimes it annoyed me that everything was spelled out and repeated several times and that the heroine has an romantical attention spam of five seconds once her object of attention is out of her side. But how were we ourselves, really?
The story line was obvious, and I figured out what was going to happen pretty soon, but let's say that's just my experience talking. It's not so easy trying to fool an avid reader.
But all in all, it's too hot in Belgium to think too much, and for that Frostbite gave me what I needed at the time I wanted it.

The story revolves around Rose Hathaway, a dhampir (a half human, half vampire breed to protect the live vampires) still in school to learn how to be a guardian. We follow her around school, going through her anxieties, guy trouble and even family trouble.
She's rebellious, quick to act but loyal to those she loves and needs to protect.
Her object of protection is Lissa, the last of a royal line of vampires, the Dragomir's. The story quickly takes action as Rose and her trainer stumble upon a massacre.
As it dawns on Rose that Lissa may be in more trouble than he thought, she desperately tries to hold it together while everything seems to change around her.
In the midst of that uncertainty she gets to know a very charismatic vampire, Adrian, who is as interested in her as he is in Lissa, for reasons you will have to find out for yourselves. I truly don't believe in spoilers, and as I've lifted the veil enough to make you intrigued, I'm going to call it quits.

There's probably not going to be a review tomorrow, because the novel I'm going to start in is a little more deeper and has a few more pages in it, but maybe the day after tomorrow.

Review of Vampire Academy

First published in 2007.
Page count: 332 pages.
Personal rating: 3/5

In short

Vampires. Good vampires studying at a school, the academy mentioned in the title, whilst their future guardians are being trained in protecting them from the bad vampires.
Our heroine enters the picture when she and her best friend, Lissa, are being hauled back to the academy after they ran away for a reason not immediately explained.
Whilst they find their way in the social scene again, events happen around them to think being back might be as bad as they tried to tell.

My two cents

This novel brings in a theme of bad versus good vampires and creates a world where the good vampires need protecting.
Being a good vampire comes with magic and a slight tolerance for light, while being bad you are just plain evil and the sun will kill you (as the more common vampire).
A nice angle, but it isn't as refreshing as I thought it would be.
I liked the main character though, Rose Hathaway is my kind of girl, a reckless, sexy girl who knows the power she has over the opposite sex, but still innocent enough to be scared of her own powers.
The story line was a bit predictable, I had pinpointed the doer a long time before everything got unraveled, but it entertained me and sometimes that's enough.