Book Review: Vampire Academy

Title: Vampire Academy

Author: Richelle Mead

Publisher: Razorbill

Series: Vampire Academy #1

Release Date: 16/08/2007

Pages: 332

Format: Paperback

Buy: Book Depository

Author Twitter: @RichelleMead

‘St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school – it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s Academy – the very place they’re most in danger.

Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable night time rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi – the world’s fiercest and dangerous vampires – make Lissa one of them forever.’

It’s been an extremely long time since I’ve been so hooked to a book that I’ve read it within a few hours over the space of two days. But that’s exactly what has happened here. Vampire Academy has been a book that I’ve wanted to read for a while and even more so when I knew that there was a movie coming out.

The book had me hooked from beginning to end. There wasn’t a moment where a page wasn’t filled with action, adventure or extremely interesting histories. The plot didn’t feel like it dragged at all and there was always something there that kept me reading.

Throughout the book I didn’t really know what was going to happen next which made me want to read on. There was only something that threw you off track every time you took a guess about something and it kept you on your toes. The twists in the plot weren’t pointless either and weren’t there just as a filler. All the twists seem to interlock with each other and added up to the big picture.

Rose has to be one of my favourite characters. I love the fact that she’s so defensive and Lissa and won’t back down from a fight when she knows that she’s in the right. I loved the way that her character slowly started to change for the better when she started to realise her responsibility but you could still see the fiery side in her that still came out during the book.

I got slightly worried before I had read the book that it was all going to be based around the forbidden romance that it mentioned in the blurb but I was quite happily surprised that that was far from the case. You could see there elements of romance in the book but Richelle Mead did a really good job making sure that It was a small sub plot that didn’t take away from the main point of the book. You could see Ana’s feelings develop midway through the book but there weren’t chapters of the book dedicated to it which was a really nice change. It made the book a lot more enjoyable for me since I really wasn’t looking for a supernatural romance book.

I found the history that was put into the book extremely interesting. I loved reading the background of the Academy and about the Moroi. Even the characters’ histories were really intriguing. It gave you an insight into all the characters and what brought them to place that they are in.

I cannot wait to read the rest of the books in this series and Richelle Mead has done an amazing job of captivating her readers into this world.

Rating: ★★★★1/2