Heart says

Been meaning to read this for awhile, and seeing the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation made me want to read it even more.

Vampire Academy follows the story of Rose Hathaway and Lissa Dragomir, as they are forcefully brought back to the Academy after running away. They may look like your average teenagers, but they aren't. Lissa is a Moroi, a living vampire Princess, and Rose is her dhampir guardian (half human, half vampire), dedicated to protecting her from harm and more importantly, from Strigoi, evil, blood-thirsty immortal vampires. They ran away from the Academy 2 years ago, but now they're back and all the secrets from their past are rushing to catch up with them, and danger lurks around every corner.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book before I read it, and I was quite pleasantly surprised by it. Rose was a feisty main character, witty, sharp, passionate. Lissa is a quieter, more thoughtful character. I loved them both, but Rose in particular. Rose felt a lot more well rounded than Lissa but Lissa had obvious depth to her as well.

The book tackled lots of common YA themes in it, including depression and self-harm, as well as bullying and romance, and briefly touches upon ideas such as domestic abuse and abandonment. I liked that Mead addressed some of these, particularly depression and stuff as they don't get covered as much in literature, and it was nice that Mead had thought out her characters backgrounds so thoroughly as well. At the same time, I felt like it was a lot of issues to be brought up and tackled and just felt a bit cliche and OTT.

I also felt like there were aspects of the world that were referenced, like stigmas and social things, that were referenced and we were supposed to understand a bit more and get why they were so important, but I felt like we didn't necessarily have all the information to do so, like stuff related to female dhampirs and whatever.

I felt like the end of the book was a little anti-climactic personally. I thought it was enjoyable enough and whatever, but it just didnt seem to be quite as exciting as I was expecting, although maybe I'm just a bit more used to huge dramatic ending battles.

Overall though, it was an interesting and exciting book with good, strong female characters, and I'm excited to see what happens in the next book, and to see the film. :)