The Vampire Academy Series - Richelle Mead

Can this series be any less young adult and anymore emotionally draining? UGH. THE FEELS!

I had this big plan to review this book series individually. But then this thing called Life happened. Married life...mom of two kiddos and one fur baby...working full time...trying to squeeze in my own personal writing time...just too damn much. I have been wanting to review this series and I made an executive decision to do this as a review of the entire six book series. I did do reviews for book one and two, and they are floating around here somewhere. I will try to keep this a concise review about the series, but I make no promises. The amount of feels and crazy shit that goes down in this series, well, it's like my friend Jeff would say: it's like trying to handcuff an octopus.

Here are the list of the books in the series:

Vampire Academy (reviewed forever ago)

Frost Bite (reviewed a few months ago)

Shadow Kissed

Blood Promise

Spirit Bond

Last Sacrifice 

First things first: what the heck is this series about? Well, it's about vampires. Duh! Just kidding. tells the story of Rosemarie "Rose" Hathaway, a Dhampire girl, who is training to be a guardian of her Moroi best friend, Vasilisa "Lissa" Dragomir. In the process of learning how to defeat Strigoi (basically the traditional evil undead vampires) in St. Vladimir's Academy, Rose finds herself caught in a forbidden romance with her instructor, Dimitri Belikov, while having an unbreakable psychic bond with Lissa. That's the gist of the story anyway. There's more that grows and developed between these main characters as side line antagonists come and go. 

But, I feel like these books have been around for a while and most people have read them, so I'm not going to go much more into detail. 

However, let me say this: these books honestly were SO draining. Don't get me wrong, I love to torture my characters. It's what writers do. But I feel like Richelle Mead went through a period where she completely loathed Rose. There are times where I feel that author and creation didn't agree with the path that should be taken. There are times where Rose is the perfect lead female, and then other times a petulant pain in the ass. There was a strange back and forth between this being young adult and then being WAY TOO ADULT. I mean, the boning scenes, though fairly toned down, were still a little difficult to read when you realize Rose is seventeen and Dimitri is twenty-one or twenty-two. The second time they get it on she's eighteen. So thanks for up'ing the age before they got their sexual healing on again. 

But, I can forgive this duality because I like being lost in the story and forgetting I'm reading young adult. I see it as a sign of good writing. Well, except in Blood Promise. I felt like Mead might have let Rose get a bit out of hand. And in doing so, kind of wrote herself into a corner. She goes from angry to mournful to eager blood whore (Mead's description, not mine), and then back to badass señorita. Oh, and then there's all this mess going on with Lissa back a the Academy. It is one big pile of hot mess and, for me, just not really well written at all. 

After Blood Promise, I just have issues with Spirit Bond and Last Sacrifice. Though much better, it felt like it was trying really hard to apologize for Blood Promise. Like, hey, I don't know why I had Rose run off to Sibera. But! She's back! She's going to graduate and it'll be okay. NO! IT WONT BE OKAY! Oh Rose. Can your life suck anymore? 

But what about the first three books? Those are acting good, solid, action filled stories. The ghost stuff in Shadow Kiss was a little random (and is weakly explained in Blood Promise), but overall, great story telling. I felt like those books, Rose was written clearly and her voice was genuine. I trusted Rose and her idealism. But yeah...Blood Promise. Off the deep end. 

Overall, this is a great series. It perfectly borders (most of the time) that young adult mentality while making us adults forget that we are reading about a teenage Dhampire who has a habit for trouble. The series ended happily for everyone (for the most part), and it didn't leave me wanting to break my kindle (yes. Forever I will be bitter about Veronica Roth's betrayal for the Divergent  series). 

So thanks so much for stopping by the read this blog. I know I am such an unreliable blogger, but, as Prince would say, it's this thing called life. I will have some more blog reviews up soon and one I am particularly excited for (gotta wait till September 12!). 

Until next time! Remember to be yourself, unless you can be a pirate. Then ALWAYS BE A PIRATE!