Saturday, October 29, 2011

A Reader's Ramble- Vampire Academy Series

Okay, so this isn't a normal Reader's Ramble. I am going to be talking about a series of books called Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. I can't even put it into categories because.. I just can't. It's impossible because this series is too good for the category system of reviewing. View my Reader's Ramble of the first book alone here.


When I started reading this series, I wasn't really sure how I was going to feel about it. I mean vampires? Come on now. Vampires are lame, they freaking sparkle. If they're anything like Edward Cullen, I'm going to hate this series. 
Those were my thoughts basically going into this series. I was sure I was going to hate it. I actually kind of wanted to hate it. Vampires are so cliche. I can't actually let myself like this series. 

But, I didn't hate it. 
Turns out these vampires are NOTHING like the vampires in Twilight. I don't even know why people compare this series to Twilight. It's nothing, I repeat NOTHING alike! This series blows Twilight in the dust. 

On the back of the books, The Daily Beast said that Vampire Academy is "the obvious heir to the Twilight Throne." 
You know what Paige says? That stinking Twilight never even had a freaking throne because this series murdered it before it even took the throne, and took over. 

Seriously, I know a lot of you guys hate Twilight out there, and because of that you may not want to read this series. I assure you that Vampire Academy has no similarities to Twilight whatsoever, except that fact that the word Vampire is used in each series. 

I hope that is clear to you all now. Because I'm moving on. 

Vampire Academy is not only completely different than Twilight, it's also a million times better! 

Pretty Little Liars is my favorite series of books, I am loyal to those books forever. But after reading these..Vampire Academy is definitely tied for 1st place in my rankings. I never thought I'd read another series I liked as much, and possibly more than PLL, but I did!

I don't know what planet Richelle Mead is from, but I don't think it's Earth. She is a complete genius. I don't know how the heck she came up with such a brilliant, fantastic, amazing, exciting, unique, adventurous, romantic, scary, action-packed, and addicting series. 

When I saw addicting, I mean LIKE DRUGS. This book is like alcohol, I just always need more of it. This series actually made me cry. Not just cry, bawl. Like huge tears streaming down my face. 

Shadow Kiss, VA #3 and Blood Promise, VA #4 were definitely my favorites. Shadow Kiss was the one that made me cry so hard. I always mention how the only book to ever make me tear up was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.. and it was really just tearing up a little. 
With Shadow Kiss, they were huge tears and I was actually sobbing. That's just shows you how powerful these books are. 
I also finished the last book, Last Sacrifice in 2 days, and it's 594 pages. That's also gotta say something about these books. 

Each of the six books has such an amazing plot. Each one is equally as exciting and action packed. This series keeps you off the edge of your seat and wanting more the entire time. In each one something completely different happens, the characters go through a whole new exciting adventure. 

The characters! These characters are not just normal vampires. They don't sparkle. They're too good for sparkling. These vampires are just amazing.. I don't even see them as vampires. Like sometimes I forget that fact. 

There are Moroi, the normal, good vampires of society. They drink blood without killing their victims, they have fangs, are pale and tall and have normal colored eyes, not red or anything stupid like that. They can posses five types of power, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and one other one I'm not going to tell you about... The Moroi basically run the show. 

Then there are Dhampirs. Dhampirs are half Moroi, half human. They look like humans, don't have fangs or drink blood, but they are extremely strong and have great senses. Dhampirs become body gaurds for Moroi, especially the Royal Moroi. 

Our narrator, Rose Hathway is a Dhampir. She is the best friend of Lissa Dragomir, a Royal Moroi. 

Lastly, there are Strigoi. Strigoi are the evil ones, the living dead. They are super pale and have bright red eyes and fangs. They love to kill people, especially Moroi's.  Every Strigoi was once a Moroi, Dhampir, or Human. Strigoi are created, not born. 

No matter what type of character it is, all of them are brilliant. You fall in love with them right away. One of the Moroi in the story is the love of my life. 



Yeah, I'm that obsessed. 

But the thing is, why am I obsessed? It's because Richelle Mead is so good at creating amazing, realistic, and lovable characters! Even though the narrator isn't human and pretty much has nothing in common with me, I still loved her. Rose was so real, so brave, determined, hilarious, strong, and just a wonderful character. 
All of them are amazing. Every single one. The good and evil ones. 

I could go on for paragraphs more about how amazing this series is, but I need to stop now. You know what you guys need to do?
Go. Read. This. Series!
I mean it! I don't care what genre is your favorite, you will fall in love with this series right away anyway. Mine is Contemporary Fiction, but as you can see, I loved it! 

I rate this series 1000 stars. Yeah, I can do that. I created my own system :) 
I really want to thank Marisa, Evie, and Laura for recommending this series to me and finally convincing me to read it. Thanks so, so much guys! 

Lastly, I want you all to most certainly...



post signature 

7 comments:

Unknown said...

okay, i would read it -- seriously, i sooo want to now! -- but my parents have banned vampire stuff in our house. i got in serious doodoo for reading twilight... ^.-

Anonymous said...

Haha, it sounds like you were very impressed! I'm confused, though; I thought you liked Twilight...?

I've already asked for literally ten books for Christmas, from two different people, no less; so I can't really add these to the list. :) But I'll see if they're at the library, because it sounds like you were pretty impressed. :)

And WHAT?! You only TEARED UP at "The Book Thief"? Man, I CRIED. And "Jellicoe Road" didn't even make you tear up?! I don't know, something about THAT book made me cry, too. I guess I'm kind of teary with good books and movies. ;)

Glad you enjoyed these!

Anonymous said...

Oh, boy. I just got back from checking my library's card catalog online.

They have all six Vampire Academy books, haha!

I know what I'll have to look for next time I'm at the library! ;)

Paige Woiner said...

@Cubette- Aw, that really sucks :( if they ever remove that rule.. def read it!

@Talor Lynn- I do like twilight, I just hate Edward Cullen and some of the things that happen in the books. And I despise the movies. After reading VA, I just realized how cliche Twilight was. I still like it, but not as much.

Yeah, only teared pretty much, I think in jellicoe road I teared a little too. But this one made me bawl literally. When a book makes me do that, I'm automatically impressed.
YESSSS!!!!!! I'm so happy your library has them! You will love them! Gah!

Anonymous said...

Haha, so then, are you a Team Jacob? xD I prefer to call myself a member of Team Alice, thankyouverymuch. Edward and Jacob are nothing special; they're always bickering with each other. But whenever Alice made an appearance, the book got interesting. ;) Alice is my favorite Twilight character, period - forget the hot-vampire/werewolves!

And yeah, when a book can make you cry it usually means it's a good one. No badly-written book will bring tears to your eyes, unless they're tears of boredom!

Anonymous said...

ive already read this series and love it just as much as you do, it is my favorite book series ever! im still obsessed and i started them beginning of 2010 and finished them end of 2010 (i finished them all within a week except last sacrifice since it wasnt out yet..thats why i ended so late because thats when it was released..) and now its nearly 2012. anyways just wondering have you read a series similar to this with good romance and action that is not stupid 13 year old type language and drama that you've loved because i havent found anything nearly as good since reading VA!? :/

cdolphina2 said...

I completely agree with you!! I absolutely love the series. Have you read Bloodlines and The Golden Lily which is a spin-off from VA?