Story 3 of 5 stars
Heat 3 of 5 stars
Series – Vampire Academy
Main characters – Rosemarie ‘Rose’ Hathaway, Vasilisa ‘Lissa’ Dragomir, Dimitri Belikov, Christian Ozera
Listened to audio narrated by Khristine Hvam. While I still feel like the narrator gives these characters too young of a tone, I thought she did a much better job of narration than the previous books but Dimitri still has no accent.
Rose is a seventeen dhamphire in training to become a guardian, in love with her trainer Dimitri. She’s shadow kissed and linked to her best friend, Lissa a Moroi princess. Ever since her battle with Strigoi that ended up with the death of her friend Mason she’s been struggling with flashbacks and other weirdness.
Rose and her fellow dhamphires are getting ready for their field experience. For the next six weeks they will be be guarding their assigned Moroi while their trainers stage attacks to test and evaluate them. The problem is Rose keeps seeing Mason’s ghost and suffering from headaches and severe mood swings. She might be a bad ass but her distraction almost gets her removed from the Academy.
When the Strigoi attack the Academy everyone she cares about is in jeopardy and may cost her someone she loves.
Dimitri and Lissa finally figure out what their are going to do with their relationship, but the Strigoi attack changes everything.
I liked this book better than than the previous two. but it still has problems. There is still plenty of teenage, angsty, mean behavior and Rose is still a manipulative, self-absorbed bitch most of the time. The relationship between Dimitri and Rose will squick some people out. However, it’s clear some growth has finally happened for some of the characters, while others still need maturing. The elitism, classism and racism is one of the reasons the Academy is endangered and vulnerable to attack.
While some things were predictable Mead gives us a few surprises that will leave you wanting to have the next book ready to find out what’s going to happen next, even with problematic characters and a few editing issues.
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