A teenage dream come true in the form of a popular vampire fantasy series set at an academy, which is unsurprisingly called Vampire Academy, follows the life of a Moroi princess, Lissa, and her Dhampir best friend, Rose, who would sacrifice her own life to protect her. Aside from the fact that it’s her job as a guardian, of course.
You know that feeling when you can’t afford all the books and whims you want as a teenager, and then, when you finally earn your own money, you fulfill your old dream? My list includes quite a few books like this, along with Twilight (speaking of vampires), which I’ll buy in a beautiful special edition one day. I happened to come across this series in a bookstore and decided to buy the first book. That very same evening, I ordered the rest of the series… and I didn’t regret it.
The beginning is a bit of a slow burn, and explanations about the world and different types don’t really come until around page eighty, where we finally learn the basic differences between Moroi, Dhampirs, and Strigoi. This was common knowledge for the characters in the book, so putting it out there right at the start would make reading a lot easier and hook the reader faster. I really liked the way Rose slowly investigates and pieces things together about the phrase “shadow-kissed” and Lissa’s supernatural ability. It adds tension and makes you want to keep reading to finally learn more, without having all the info dumped on you at once.
In the story, we meet two main characters, Rose and Lissa, with the famous and fearless guardian Dimitri popping into the plot quite often too. For the most part, the relationship between Rose and Lissa reminded me of a mother and child, with Rose being the overprotective momāsometimes I felt like she wouldn’t even let Lissa go to the bathroom alone. On the other hand, Lissa often seemed like a toddler who wasn’t even capable of going to that bathroom by herself. I didn’t really vibe with Lissa as a character in many situations; I often felt like she only cared about herself. Even though she loved Rose like a sister, somewhere deep down, she just knew Rose would always be there for her. But she had a nice relationship with her boyfriend Christian, who wasn’t exactly popular because of his parents, who willingly turned into Strigoi. She was also sweet and kind to others, so she made up for it a lot in this book.
In my opinion, Rose goes through huge character development. In this book, she is just your typical seventeen-year-old student who loves to party and thinks about the consequences later. After a while, I started to think that Roseās parents didnāt really give her much attention, affection, praise, or recognition. Thatās why I think she is so promiscuous, hooks up with every guy even though she knows itās going nowhere, talks back, and loves being the center of attention. As Penny from The Big Bang Theory would say, the right word to sum all of this up is popular. It felt like her way of compensating for her parents’ neglect. Only later is it explained in more detail that her mother basically sent her off to school as soon as she could so she could focus on her guardian duties, and she didn’t even know her father. So yeah, I guess this theory is pretty well-founded. But just so I’m not only criticizing our main character and her impulsive, unpredictable nature, she took her guardian duties super seriously, trained with Dimitri to the point of exhaustion, and sacrificed her own well-being just to keep Lissa in a good mood. At this point, I have to say that Lissa was a pretty bad friend to Rose. I know she had certain mental health issues stemming from her supernatural gift of Spirit, but she didnāt pay attention to Rose at all. What kind of best friend doesn’t notice that her quasi-sister has fallen in love with her instructor? Rose never confided in Lissa about her feelings because she put Lissa’s well-being first.
This brings us to Rose’s partly non-existent romantic relationship with Dimitri. He seemed tough, fearless, and determined, but she was one of the few who managed to sneak inside his walls and get to know him. Given the age gap, the instructor-student relationship, not to mention that both are supposed to be Lissa’s guardians, I totally got why we didn’t get such a deep emotional insight. But many a young heart melted when Dimitri admitted that if they went any further romantically, in case of danger, he wouldn’t protect Lissaāhis duty and jobābut Rose instead.
The ending was dramatic, dynamic, and we got action, torture, and burning. What more could you ask for from a vampire fantasy. Even though we pretty much got a proper conclusion and our characters can calmly step into a new day, it’s clear that the first book was a beautiful setup for the upcoming sequels, which I can’t wait for. After all, I already have them at home…