I really approached this book with a lot of trepidation. After all, whilst I thought Twilight was good, but not great, I wondered could this exceed that book, and who knows...could it reach the heights of Anne Rice's writing?
Perhaps I wanted too much. Anyone who had read Interview With the Vampire knows what a stocking great read it is (as is Lestat, and Queen of the Damned). I'll be the first to admit that I would love to write a great vampire story, but think I may fall short.
So I give Richelle Mead credit for trying.
At first, I thought it might be like 'Hogwarts with fangs'. The mere word 'academy' has me thinking about things in comic proprtions...someone I knew once had a mp3 on their phone of Commander Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager saying 'They don't teach you THAT at the academy', and then there are the various Police Academy films.
So I had to get away from all that to give VA a chance!
I loved the idea of half human teens training the would-be vampires, but as I got into the book, it wasn't clear who was the bad guy (s) and the Strigoi (the badass vampires) seemed more than one-dimensional baddies, which was great to read.
Rose and Lissa are two of the main protagonists, and I was drawn to them both (or sucked in)....especially Lissa as one of the characters I created is also called Lissa even though they are totally different.
The book is clearly aimed at YA but at this stage, I am not sure it will grab a wider audience as say (THG or HP) not because it's not good, because it is, but it lacks that special something to really spark it into greatness.
There are more books in the series and I have just started Frostbite (Vampire Academy 2) and actually, this story seems a lot more rounded. Perhaps that is the case for all second stories in the series.
Back to this one, and I understand there is a graphic novel version of this. That's great because I recently read The Dark Knight Rises graphic novel, and have to say I want to see more books go this way!
Vampire Academy is well written, with great characters and I like the danger aspect of the academy itself...you don't know if one faction of the vampires will turn on another. As there are six books I realise I am way behind, and the film only had limited release which is strange, given the fanfare of the books. All the same, a good read that may become part of an awesome series.
On Good Reads, I gave this four very strong stars.
YA is getting better again!
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