Shannon C.’s review of Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, Book 1) by Richelle Mead
YA urban fantasy released by Razorbill 16 Aug 07

I’ve been kind of bemused by the taking off of so many books in the YA genre lately, and have found myself thinking on more than one occasion, ‘Where the hell were these books when I was seventeen?’

The books I remember reading that were specifically YA were books that dealt with Weighty Issues (TM), or, what my children’s lit professor called “problem novels”. If there was genre fiction, I wasn’t aware of it. I’m pretty sure that had Richelle Mead written her vampire academy series ten years ago, my younger self would have lapped it up as a favorite novel. As it is, I still plowed through the book in record time, pausing now and then to inform some of my friends in strident tones that if they did not go out to wherever fine books are sold and procure a copy of this book, then they were evil Commies who liked to kick puppies. (OK, maybe I wasn’t that bad. But still. The squeeing, it happened.) While the book isn’t perfect, nor is it especially original, it is an engaging story and I’m impatient to be able to read further in the series.

The premise is a bit of Twilight, a bit of Harry Potter, and a bit of normal everyday adult urban fantasy. When the story opens, we meet best friends Rose and Lissa. Lissa is a Moroi, which are, in essence, the good vampires, and Rose is a dhampir, or half-vampire, half-human. The Moroi are physically weaker than the dhampirs, but they can wield elemental magic. They rely on the Dhampirs to act as guardians, and that’s what Rose has been doing for Lissa, who is a princess of one of the royal lines of Moroi. Anyway, the girls have been on the run from St. Vladimir’s, the titular academy where they both attend classes, but are brought back to heel in the first chapter by Russian guardian Dimitri. Once they’re back at the school, Rose and Lissa have to contend with normal teen cliquishness, some interesting boys in both of their lives, and the powers that Lissa has developed.

The thing I loved most about this book was the true and deep friendship between Rose and Lissa. It’s not all one-sided either. Rose is fiercely protective of Lissa, but Lissa is willing to go to bat for Rose whenever she needs to. It’s so refreshing to actually see female friendships in the course of my reading, since it doesn’t seem to happen all that often in most of what I read, despite how female-centric a lot of romance and urban fantasy are.

Separately, the girls are just as interesting. I loved Rose. Like a lot of urban fantasy heroines, she tends to be impulsive and reckless, but at least she has the excuse of being seventeen and can sometimes be reasonably assumed to not know any better. She really has to struggle with her own prejudices about other people and to learn not to be so judgmental. I’m looking forward to seeing what else she has to deal with. It’s also nicely refreshing, to me at least, that she’s a real teenager, instead of the kind of teenager I remember from the aforementioned problem novels of my youth. Rose has gotten drunk, she’s kind of a slut, and she’s a party girl, and she’s pretty matter-of-fact about it. It’s all stuff she’ll have to grow out of, but any given one of those things would have been a big issue in the books I remember from my own teenage years.

It’s an interesting choice, and an effective one, to have the story of Rose and Lissa told from Rose’s first-person narration. I don’t think it would have worked the other way, because Lissa, while definitely the one with the interesting powers and the one who’s placed in danger, probably would have come off as a bit of a Mary Sue. In fact, she doesn’t quite avoid this fate. But she does have flawed moments that redeem her. I loved how deep her affection and trust for Rose were, and I loved the scenes between her and Christian, the boy she’s interested in, who was one of my favorite other characters.

The rest of the cast could also fall into stereotypical roles, but manage to avoid doing so. There’s the popular rich bitch who is trying to improve her social standing but whose parents aren’t politically important. There’s Dimitri, who has a strong sense of ethics and honor, despite being the sexy mentor. There’s Christian, the loner bad boy with odd but sensible ideas about how the vampire society should work. Each of these people were well-nuanced. I even liked Mason, the poor schmuck who isn’t Dimitri who clearly has a thing for Rose. And the villain, while creepy, has motivations slightly more complicated than “Bwahaha, I am the Dark Lord of Dark Darkness!”

I found the plot compelling as well. Rose revealed the backstory in a way that felt natural. I never felt that she was holding things back from the reader, and the flashbacks were well done. If I have a quibble, it’s that some of the foreshadowing feels a little obvious. For example, even without reading discussions of the book online, I knew that when Rose found out about two guardians eloping and felt a sense of deep disgust that she was going to have to face a difficult choice along those same lines. I also found myself wondering why it took two years for the girls to be discovered and brought back. I can’t believe they were really that good at hiding out, and besides, two years is a long time when you’re a teenager. And what did they do during those two years? Well, at least we know they went to high school, which would totally not be one of my priorities if I was trying to run away. Then again, such was my absorption in this book that I wasn’t really bothered by it until I stopped reading and had let the book digest.

If you’re a fan of YA and haven’t given much of it a try, you could do worse than read this book. It’s got fun characters, an interesting and engaging story, and it’s a fast-paced read, even if it’s not one of the most original premises ever invented.

Grade: A-

Summary:
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—the very place where they’re most in danger. . . .

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

Read an excerpt.

Other books in the series:

and Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, Book 4), due 20 Aug 2009