The coolest paranormal school since Hogwarts

Now this was a series for which I admit I honestly didn't have a lot of hope. At this point I am honestly starting to burn out on the genre and they titles were all starting to blur together. Further, I was becoming increasingly glad that I am no longer a teen. So I was pleasantly surprised when a series in which I was not expecting to find much value turned out to be pretty good! Let's see what it is:

Title: Vampire Academy
Frostbite
Author: Richelle Mead
Respective start/finish dates: 11/23/10-11/25/10
11/25/10-11/26/10
Book counts: 75, 76

I started this series rather disinterested and the first chapter didn't really warm me up. It was a little confusing and I actually thought briefly that I must have accidently purchased the wrong book and was reading a later book in the series rather than the first. However, once I pushed past that first chapter, the series really picks up.

The premise of this series has a little more in common with Harry Potter than with Twilight. Actually, perhaps it is more of a nice fusion of the two. The romance angle is not as central to this series as is the theme of coming of age, discovering who you are and what you can do, and so on. It even takes place in a magical school, rather similar to Hogwarts. There is romance, of course, but not necessarily the life altering, all-consuming passion seen in some of the others. At least not yet. The idea is that there are three kinds of vampires, all existing in a world of which humans are utterly unaware. There are the good, living vampires, called Moroi, who rule the vampire world and who feed on human blood, but must never kill. Then there are the evil, undead vampires, called Strigoi, who are a constant threat to the Moroi. Finally, there are the dhampirs, half human and half Moroi, who don't need blood, but have enhanced senses and who serve as guardians to the Moroi. The series follows Rose, a dhampir determined to guard and save her best friend, the Moroi, Lissa. The both attend a school for vampires and the plot follows both the everyday aspects of being a teenage vampire and, of course, the action that occurs when some not-so-nice vampires come around.

This series is pretty decidedly teenager oriented. However, I really liked it. It stood out from the long list of other books in this genre which have been filling my last several weeks and, once again, despite not initially intending to read beyond the first book, I was compelled to immediately download the second book in the series. And I loved that one too. Although I am too burned out on paranormal YA fiction for now to read beyond thos two, I am sufficiently drawn to find out what happed next to Lissa, Rose, and Rose's love, Dimitri, that I will almost assuredly be reading the remainder of the series in the new year. It is believable in ways that the others often are not. Of course, when I say believable, I don't mean in the sense that I believe there are vampires in schools in Montana, but rather that Mead successfully weaves the paranormal aspects into an approach that isn't so over-the-top outragious that it is all I can focus on and also, the lives of the main characters are completely accessible beyond their fantasy status. That is to say, yes, they are vampires in a vampire school, but beyond that, what they do each day in school isn't so far from the real teen experience that readers wouldn't identify. The romance between Rose and Dimitri is completely realistic. The friendships, and frenemy-ships (is that a word??) are similar to what a reader would really experience. It takes the real and adds a twist of fantasy, which I think is a great combination.

Whew, what a relief to find something good, just when I was about to hit burn out. I will look forward to finishing the six part series in a few months, once I have gotten out of the paranormal funk that is starting to set in. If I am not careful here, I might actually start to believe vampires and werewolves are real with all this stuff!

Grade: solid A
Would adults enjoy it: well, only if they are still teens at heart, like I am. The target audience is teens and it plays well to that audience.

Keep reading!
Sarah