Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead [Series Review]

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy

Frostbite

Shadow Kiss

Blood Promise

Spirit Bound

Last Sacrifice

I've been debating ever since I finished this series whether to do individual reviews or do a full series review. I started writing my review for Frostbite and it somehow turned into a full series review. So it was basically decided for me.

After reading Vampire Academy last month, I was extremely excited to continue with this series (especially since I'd heard it gets even better - which it did!). I held off until I managed to get a hold of the rest of the series from my library so that I could just read them straight after each other and it was definitely the right decision.

Vampires haven't been my favourite paranormal creatures in years, but this series rekindled my love for them. A vampire school; A kick-ass main character; Awesome vampire powers; Lots of fighting/action and some very hot guys - what's not to love about this series? The fact that there are 3 different types of Vampires - Dhampire: half Moroi/half human, Moroi: mortal vampires & Strigoi: undead - kept this series interesting and we were constantly learning about each of them throughout the series. Every time I finished one of these books I was blown away, and then the next one would be a million times more awesome than the previous one. I was hooked on this series, I didn't want to put it down. Every spare moment I had during the week and a half it took me to finish it was spent reading this series.

Rose is one of those characters that I just instantly loved. She's so feisty, badass, determined, protective and just so damn awesome that it's hard not to love her. Throughout the series my love for her grew. Rose would do anything to protect the people she loves and cares about and she definitely shows that. Rose would go to some extreme lengths to help her friends, but that's what I love and admire about her.

Lissa's character grew on me throughout the series. I wasn't much of a fan of her in Vampire Academy, but as the series went on I started to really like her. Lissa grew stronger and more confident as the series went on and didn't rely on Rose as much to fight her battles. By the end of the series I really admired Lissa.

Dimitri and Christian have to be two of my favourite guys ever from a book. Both of them were badass and awesome in completely different ways.
Dimitri is a guardian who teaches and St. Vladimir's. He's so focused and determined, strong, powerful and extremely sexy. Whenever he called Rose 'Roza', he had me swooning. Dimitri goes through a hell of a lot throughout this series and there was a time I wanted to punch him every time he appeared - which wasn't totally his fault - but he managed to pull himself back at the end.
Christian is a Moroi who's parents willingly turned themselves into Strigoi and were both killed. Christian is looked down upon most of the way through this series because of what his parents did. But Christian is nothing like his parents and he constantly proves that throughout this series. He wants to learn to use his ability to help Dhampires fight Strigoi and in doing so, he inspires a lot of other Moroi to do so as well. Christian may put on a snarky and arrogant front, but underneath he's such a lovely person.

Everything about the storyline in this series was awesome. There was never a dull moment in this series. Every time you thought things were going to be OK and everyone could go off and be happy, something always came along and ruined it. I was basically on an emotional roller-coaster throughout the whole series. The introduction of new characters (especially Sydney, Adrian and Abe) kept this series interesting because I adored learning about them and finding out what they had to add to the story. The ending of Shadow Kiss destroyed me and I was frantically searching through Blood Promise to catch a glimpse of something before I could even bring myself to read it properly. I can't even begin to describe half the emotions I went through whilst reading this series but it made me laugh, smile and cry and I loved every single second of it.

Last Sacrifice was definitely my favourite book of the series and I'm glad that the last book is the one I enjoyed the most. The ending of this series was just perfect but it make me want to cry because I just want more. I want more Rose/Lissa, Rose/Dimitri, Lissa/Christian and more Adrian and Sydney (which is why I have the Bloodlines series all ready to go for next month!).

I seriously can't believe I waited so long to start this series, but I'm also kind of glad I did and that I got to read it all at once instead of waiting for the next book to come out (I feel so bad for the people who had to wait for Blood Promise to come out). Vampire Academy is one of the best series I've read this year and I definitely recommend it to everyone. Seriously, if you haven't read this series yet, you should. You should read it right now.