Ok so I had this friend in middle school who had awful taste in books and movies and shows, and she told me to read Vampire Academy, by Richelle Mead. Needless to say, I dismissed it as some Twilight knockoff that I wouldn't hear another word about. I recently told this story to one of my other friends when she recommended that I read the series, and I thought, oh what the heck. At least I'll get a few laughs.
Needless to say, this story could be a metaphor for the expression "Don't judge a book by it's cover."
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead is an AMAZING book. I don't often admit that I was wrong, and especially not in public, but I will FREELY SCREAM IT FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS.
It's about this girl (I know, I'm a sucker for female protagonists) named Rose Hathaway who is best friend and guardian-in-training of Lissa Dragomir, a moroi (living vampire). Rose is a dhampir, which is the offspring of a human and a moroi, or a dhampir and a moroi. It is very complicated and we will get to that later, possibly.
Anywho, Rose and Lissa attend this school called St. Vladamir Academy, which is this super secret school for moroi and dhampirs. However, and for very good reasons, Rose and Lissa ran away from St. Vlad's and lived in the outside world for two years. It's a pretty bad idea for moroi to live unprotected in the human world because there are other vampires called strigoi (dead vampires) that like to EAT moroi. This is why guardians are necessary, and this is one of the reasons why Rose is so cool. Her and Lissa have a bond, which basically means that Rose can sense when Lissa is in danger and occasionally go directly into her head.
Their little exercise in independence ends when a group of guardians from the academy, led by Dimitri Belikov (WARNING: Complex-male-character-who-I-love alert!), come to bring them back. Lissa manages to convince the lady in charge of the academy not to expel Rose, who does not have the royal status that Lissa has, on the condition that Rose take extra training sessions (since she basically missed two years of school, even if she DID get two years of real-life experience) with Guardian Belikov, who is described as "a god."
Now before you think that is meant in a shallow way, you should know that it is. But it also means that he is one of the BEST guardians ever. He's Russian, and he has an ACCENT. He also likes Westerns and he wears a leather duster coat. Look at this guy! He's adorable. You will love him.
Ok so it's pretty safe to say that Rose is kind of mad about taking lessons with Dimitri, especially since he's really attractive and about 7 years older than her, but also because he kind of kicks her butt on a daily basis. And he won't get to the good stuff, like teaching her to stake things, they just keep sparring and whatnot. She's pretty mad about that.
Meanwhile, Lissa is having some troubles that are making Rose a bit unhappy, like getting bullied by this moroi girl, Mia, who is dating Lissa's ex-boyfriend. Also, someone keeps leaving dead animals in her dorm room, and she still hasn't specialized in elemental magic, like fire, earth, air, or water. All of this makes Lissa pretty stressed, so she starts hanging out in the attic of the church, which she quickly discovers is the hangout of Christian Ozera, the academy's resident outcast. He's a really complex character, too. I'm lovin' all the complex characters up in here! Her uncle is also dying of a mysterious disease, and that's pretty sad because everybody loves him.
I really don't want to spoil anything for anybody, but I can assure you that all these interesting characters get thoroughly maimed by the end of this book, and it's awful and your poor little heart will break. Read it.
