emma's Reviews > Vampire Academy

I am...shocked.

I am astonished. I am astounded. I am...surprised. I am dumbfounded. I am, to my core, #shook.

I reread a book that I liked in 2014...and I still liked it.

If you’ve read my reviews before, or like, once accidentally chanced upon me yelling about something and immediately ran away, or did whatever the Internet equivalent of immediately running away is (hitting “back” real fast?), then you will know something about me to be true.

I NEVER like ANYTHING. Especially not books that I liked before. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m inherently masochistic and my own worst enemy and I set myself up for failure when I’m at my most confident just to feel alive.



It’s almost like if I gave a book 5 stars over a year ago, I’m MORE likely to hate it. Isla and the Happily Ever After, for example. Or A Court of Mist and Fury. The Selection. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The Night Circus. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Just One Year. Attachments.

The year of the reread has uh...not been going well.

And then THIS book comes out of the woodwork.

I literally expected to hate this book before rereading it. It has vampires. It’s set in a high school. The villains are mostly teenage girls (#girlhatecentral). 50 percent of the plotline is gossip-based. The central romance is between a 17 or 18 year old (honestly not too sure) and a man in his mid-twenties. The whole thing is rife with opportunities for slut shaming.



And yet...GUYS THIS BOOK WAS FUN.

It was not five stars fun. It was not even four stars fun! But it waaaaas fun. Sometimes. Let’s talk about why and why not!!!

So first off. (Lol. First off like I’m not well into rambling already.) Vampire Academy follows Rose Hathaway, who’s a badass sassy sometimes girl-hating but not as often you’d expect dhampir. A dhampir is a half vampire, half human whose entire existence is dedicated to protecting the Pretty Vampires. Pretty Vampires, called Moroi by everyone who isn’t me, are nice and tall and slender and pale (you will hear these descriptors one thousand times). They have magic that they spend 18 years learning about only to do f*ck all with it for the rest of their lives because they think using it in defense is nooooot coooooool or whatever. It’s dumb.

There are also Mean Uggo Vampires. Mean Uggo Vampires (called Strigoi) don’t have magic but they live forever and are super fast and they are meaaaaaan they have no morals at all!!! They just want blood all the time!!! Almost like a vampire or something!!!



To become a Mean Uggo Vampire, you suck someone’s blood until you kiiiiiill them. Or, I think, a Mean Uggo Vampire can bite you. I honestly don’t remember. The thing about a book telling me the same worldbuilding information 8 times is that I just start tuning one hundred percent of it out and don’t learn ANYTHING.

Breaking: I am the worst reader in the world.

Okay, so. Bad news first.

This book is fun, yes, but it could be one million times more fun. (That’s the actual math I did on it. I found a big chalkboard in the MIT math building Good Will Hunting-style with this equation on it. I solved it obvs and figured out that Vampire Academy would be exactly 1,000,000 times more fun with the following provisions.)

For one thing, probably 18% (so much math in this review I hate myself) of this book is the same worldbuilding info over. And over. And over. Pretty Vampires are tall. Also they are pale. Also they are soooooo sleeeeeender you guys. I will never, in my life, forget that Lissa is the last of the Dragomir line. (Because there is also SO MUCH INFORMATION ON VAMPIRIC MONARCHICAL SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN THIS WEIRDO BOOK.) Just cut the repetition Richelle!!!! For my sake plz!!!!!!!



Generally speaking, also, this book is très repetitive. A lot of that is based on the construction of the plot and it is garbage, for sure, but whatever. Less avoidable than the fact that ALL OF THIS IS BASED ON HIGH SCHOOL GOSSIP. There is so much drama!!! Apparently the only thing worse in the entire world than making steamy eye contact with a Mean Uggo Vampire is any damage to your reputation. A mental breakdown so devastating you end up bleeding out in the high school nurse’s office? Sure, no problem. But your fellow students finding out you almost died? SO embarrassing. Heaven forbid.

In other words: Bo-ring.

Also, sooooo much of this book toes the line on girl hate and slut shaming. I consider myself a professional on detecting the slightest trace of either and immediately screaming about it in a one-star review, but I’m really not sure on this one. It seems like girls AND boys suck here, even though there are at least two (2) girl villains. They’re at least the masterminds behind some asshole guys though??? Is that better or worse????? I literally am asking because I cannot tell my own thoughts anymore.

I’m breaking.

Rose is a flirt but she’s also a virgin, so it brings up a lot of complex sh*t when it comes to slut shaming. Thinking about it makes me feel like Charlie Day in that one episode of Always Sunny.

Like, me trying to figure out if Rose hates women:



Plus there are only two characters I actually like out of the millions upon millions who exist in this book. But I’m tired of complaining (who ever thought this day would come) so let’s talk about them.

So………….in spite all of my conspiracy-theory bulletin board red thread crazy-eyed analysis of Rose’s potential sexism, Charlie Day-style……….I like the gal a lot.

She’s pretty funny! And very badass. She does some annoying stuff and she doesn’t always treat people well, but also #same and who would I be if I judged her for the very same sins I commit on the daily.

Mainly she’s fun to read about and that, when it comes to a gooey-eyed vampire high school story, is truly the only thing that matters. We’re not going for literary character complexity here folks.

The other character I’m heavy into is, uh...I’m embarrassed to say this...guh IT’S DIMITRI OKAY. LEAVE ME ALONE.



Dimitri is the way-too-old-for-Rose love interest...and I’m love INTERESTED let me tell you. (Was that funny? It totally wasn’t, right? I am off my game today, you guys!) (Please allow me to continue to live in the happy illusion that I am sometimes funny and therefore have a game to be off.)

I don’t have much else to say. I think he’s hot, for whatever reason, and I...ugh...warning, I am about to use the worst word in human existence…ship (bleh, bleh, bleh, gag me with a spoon oh god) him and Rose.

Even though I shouldn’t.

Because again, he’s too old.



But here we are, you know? Just have to accept it really, in all its devastating off-brand-ness. Don’t ever tell me I’m not honest with you guys.

And I can’t believe I’m saying this either, but...this world is kind of...creative? Like, yes, vampires, perhaps the least creative mythical creature to put in a young adult novel in the twenty-first century, but otherwise...man. Pretty solid to be totally honest.

PLUS THIS IS FUN, OKAY? I’m done defending myself against my imagination’s interpretation of your extremely harsh reaction to this review.

Bottom line: This is fun and not good but also very guilty pleasure yum great. I’ve lost whatever loose grasp I may have once had on the ability to speak English in semi-coherent sentences. I must go.

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PRE-REVIEW

*clears throat*

I REREAD A BOOK ABOUT VAMPIRES CENTERING ON A HIGH SCHOOL TEEMING WITH DRAMA THAT I WAS INTO IN 2014.................AND I STILL LIKED IT.

don't get me wrong, it wasn't perfect or anything.

but we'll get into it. review to come