Telling It Like It Is» the hush hush

Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy Books 1-6

Lin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:00:22 +0000

Vampire Academy is an ongoing series of six vampire-based fantasy/romance novels by USA Today and New York Times best-selling author, Richelle Mead. The Vampire Academy series of books include titles such as Vampire Academy (Book 1-2007); Frostbite (Book 2-2008); Shadow Kiss (Book 3-2008); Blood Promise (Book 4-2009); Spirit Bound (Book 5-May, 2010) and Book 6 with a to-be-determined title scheduled for release in December 2010.

St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school. It’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rosemarie “Rose” Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Vasilisa “Lissa” Dragomir, a Moroi Vampire Princess.

They’ve been on the run for two years following a horrible incident, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s, a large castle hidden in the deep forests of Montana, the very place where they’re most in danger. Rose and Lissa each become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi, the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires, make Lissa one of them forever.

Vampire Academy Books

Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy (book 1) introduces guardian-in-training Rose Hathaway, her training teacher Dimitri Belikov, her best friend Vasilisa Dragomir, and Lissa’s new boyfriend Christian Ozera. Rose is 17, a student at St. Vladimir, extremely opinionated, and very tough! Dimitri is in his mid-twenties, from a small town in Russia, the assigned guardian to Lissa, and a school-wide guardian at St. Vladimir’s.

Lissa is 17, a moroi, royal, the last in her bloodline, and is currently waiting to see what magic she’s specialized in. Christian is a moroi, 17, a fire-user, an only child, and a St. Vladimir social-reject. Dimitri is assigned to train Rose to prepare her for the Senior Year Field Exam. But as Rose’s training gets underway, Lissa starts to worry about things, and finds she’s falling for bad-boy Christian Ozera.

Although Christian can help keep Lissa mentally stable, it is Rose and Dimitri’s job to keep Lissa physically stable. So when Rose gets shot with fear after running 12 miles with Dimitri, she runs even more to see what has traumatized Lissa. After 30 minutes of having to calm Lissa down, Rose, Lissa and Dimitri stuff themselves inside Lissa’s room to reveal a fox with its throat cut open, lying on Lissa’s pillow. With Rose burning with anger, she wins her first fight in class and suspects a fellow student, Mia, of killing the fox.

When students start antagonizing Rose and Lissa about the fox, one of the taunters, Ralf Sarcozy, finds himself on fire in the middle of class. After all possible fire-users are considered, it’s discovered that it is lonely Christian who performed the offensive magic. As a way of trying to figure out what’s going on between Lissa and Christian behind closed doors, Rose meditates and is able to “get into” Lissa’s head.

Afterward, Rose has a little run-in with male-royal, Jesse. As a way of getting back at Mia for some issues, Rose starts telling rumors to Jesse about Mia’s family. Right when things start getting heated and intense between Rose and Jesse, Dimitri walks in and threatens Jesse about Rose. After an outburst from Rose, a training session the next day, and a few “romantic” moments between Dimitri and Rose, it was time to get ready for Queen Tatiana to visit the school.

Once the excitement dies down, and Rose has an almost-fight with Mia, Rose finds it difficult to sleep. When Rose goes to talk to Dimitri, they find Lissa in her bathroom with a butchered rabbit in the trash. After the hall matron gets worked up, they discover a note was left for Lissa, threatening her “identity”.

As classmates start up with their comments about Rose and Lissa again, Lissa has finally had enough and starts taking things into her own hands. After a few days go by with romance continuing between Rose and Dimitri, and a few other exciting and interesting things unfold, Rose finds out she’s going on a shopping trip! But when Lissa tries to pull out a pair of shoes to show Rose, not only are there shoes in the bag, but a dead dove as well.

After everything gets cleaned up, Rose discovers that this shopping trip actually serves another purpose: she’s to be Dimitri’s partner in guarding Lissa to help Rose prepare for the future. While Rose is shopping with Lissa, they come across a rose-shaped necklace that happens to be too expensive. Once everyone gets back to the school, Rose breaks her ankle on a rotted bench, and has to be rushed to the clinic.

Although Dimitri finds Lissa passed out from cut wounds on her wrists, Lissa decides she wants to be on her own for a little while. At a school dance, Rose’s friend Mason gets Ralf and Jesse to reveal how some sex rumors got started. Also, Rose has a run-in with Mia which ends in Mia screaming with a bloody face, and a broken nose. After Rose finds herself under a spell, from a necklace, Lissa gets abducted by Viktor and his Strigoi-turned niece, Natalie.

Vampire Academy Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy has an interesting relationship between the characters, in my opinion. Rose and Lissa are bonded, so Rose will always know how Lissa is feeling, and what she’s thinking. Good-girl Lissa falls for bad-boy Christian, proving that opposites attract. And teenage-rebel Rose develops feelings for older, self-controlled Dimitri Belikov.

I love that Rose has a mind of her own. She’s not falling, stupidly, in love with someone just because of what they are, like Bella does in Twilight. She’s a typical teenager having feelings of attraction for someone she knows she’s not supposed to. She’s not some prissy girl who’s scared of everything. She’s down to fight and will instigate it; even if it’s between animals and not “humans”. What I like about Lissa, is that even though she’s supposed to be the more self-controlled and reserved one between Lissa and Rose, she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty either!

These characters are so much more realistic and well-thought out than some books I’ve read. You have typical teenagers talking smack, girls trying to ruin each other’s reputations, jealousy over popularity, people spreading rumors, etc. Richelle Mead does a fabulous job of telling a story based on fantasy, but keeping it somewhat realistic too.

One thing that helps a lot is, since Rose is bonded to Lissa, Rose needs to literally see what Lissa sees. Richelle sets up the transition so well that you know when points of view are going to change between Rose and Lissa, then back again. There may be a couple confusing parts to when the point of view is changing from Lissa to Rose, but not many.

The only parts of the book that I was getting pretty confused about, was when Richelle does her flashbacks. Instead of using 15 chapters to tell a story and then continue it, Richelle just flashes back to an event that happened between Rose, Lissa, and a teacher; it’s the whole reason for the story, basically.

In one chapter, Rose is sitting in class, and something triggers a flashback. Somehow you go from Rose in a classroom, to 3 people freaking out in a random location. So I had to reread the page to figure out what was going on. But it’s definitely not like you’re totally lost and have no idea what’s going on. Sometimes you know you’re in a flashback, sometimes you get confused, but the confusion is definitely worth reading this book!

It is an INCREDIBLE book, and I’ve already recommended this one to the Co-Owner of the Hush, Hush fansite, Rebecca. It’s not the generic story of vampires and all that nonsense. Richelle keeps to some old parts, but adds some new, and some in-betweens. She keeps to the undead, vampire-staking and no sunlight: Strigoi, but adds the idea of “living” vampires, who wield magic, and who die like a human would: Moroi. She also brings back the idea of Dhampirs: half-vampire, half-human. Only, instead of the Dhampirs killing other vampires, they GUARD the Moroi from the Strigoi.

Vampire Academy is amazingly well-thought out, and I love this book so much I feel like I’m giving too much away! You won’t be disappointed with the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead like with some other Vampire books!

Guest post review written and submitted by Heather P. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Heather P and engage with her and fellow Vampire Academy fans, Hush, Hush and Twilight book fans.

Similar Posts:

Readers who viewed this page, also viewed:

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick Book Review and Video

Lin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:00:07 +0000

This is a book review guest post of Hush, Hush: The New York Times bestsellingÂ book by Becca Fitzpatrick. The “Hush Hush” novel is a very popular book among teens and young adults, including a Hush Hush fansite “Fallen Archangel” at fallenarchangel.com and a Youtube video trailer.

In Hush, Hush, Nora Grey meets Patch Cipriano. Patch is mysterious, attractive, a bad boy, and the school’s newest transfer. Nora is brown-haired, smokey-eyed, an only child, and a columnist for the school’s eZine.

In the biology class they share together, Patch seems to know way too much about Nora; things not even her best friend, Vee Sky, knows. But when the tables are turned, and the biology assignment requires him to talk about himself, he refuses to budge. Patch’s nonchalant attitude leaves Nora frustrated with mixed feelings. While her teen hormones cause her to be attracted to Patch, something else, deep down, tells her she needs to be afraid.

When a mysterious shadow appears in Nora’s room, and a man wearing all black and a ski mask shreds her friend’s car, she looks to Vee for comfort, and winds up meeting Elliot Saunders and his best friend Jules at a local diner. While Jules seems to act strange around Nora and Vee, Elliot warms right up; confessing he just transferred from Kinghorn Prep to Coldwater High.

During the gym class that Nora winds up sharing with Elliot, she finds Patch spying on her and learns that Patch has some inhuman talents. After Elliot invites Nora and Vee to the Delphic Seaport with himself and Jules, they find out they weren’t the only ones there. When Jules strangely excuses himself, Nora finds she’s ditched her friends to ride the newly renovated Archangel, with Patch. While on the ride, Nora finds she gets launched from the car and falls; only to discover she is still safely strapped in the car at the end of the ride. Although Nora was hoping Vee would be around to give her a ride home, she discovers that Patch is her only option.

When Vee and Nora go on a shopping trip, Nora gets the feeling that someone is following her. In an attempt to uncover who the culprit may be, Nora and Vee swap a few items, and Nora watches as Vee walks out of the store with a few of her things; pretending to be Nora, of course. While the intention to disguise Vee as Nora was meant to be good, the outcome isn’t so great. Nora has to call 9-1-1 and have Vee taken to the hospital. When Nora goes to visit Vee the next day, Nora uncovers the strange coincidence that the man, who was wearing a ski mask and shredding her car, is the exact same person responsible for putting Vee in the hospital!

While Nora is at the library doing some research a few days later, she finds out that Elliot was a suspect in a murder case at Kinghorn Prep. After her discovery on Elliot, Nora finds that she is strangely being brutally bribed into going on a ski trip with himself, Vee, and Jules for Spring Break. Although Vee ignores Nora’s attempts to warn her to stay away from Elliot and Jules, the message doesn’t get through till things are a little too late.

Once Nora finds out that Vee is with Elliot and Jules at a party, Nora decides that she has to rescue Vee from them. Nora arrives close to the location that Vee told her, but finds they had already left, and Nora must call Patch for a ride home. On the ride to Nora’s house, Patch’s car ironically dies out, and they find themselves in a hotel trying to avoid the storm outside. As Nora finds herself touching the V-shaped scars on Patch’s back, she experiences flashbacks into Patch’s past. Not only does Nora find out she is the descendant of a Nephilim named Chauncey, she uncovers Patch’s true intentions towards Nora, and the fact that Patch is actually a Fallen Angel.

After they talk and realize that something isn’t right about Jules, Patch drops off Nora at home to do some research of his own. Once at home, Nora finds herself in a life-or-death situation with Patch’s ex-girlfriend. As Patch arrives to save the day, Nora receives a mysterious phone call, demanding her presence at the school. There she is confronted by Jules, who reveals his true intentions to Nora.

What I love about Hush, Hush is the complicated relationship the characters share with each other. When you think you know what’s going to happen next, you have no idea! You get thrown for a loop so many times you can’t even keep track of them all!

When it comes to a Prologue, most books don’t need them. Although some authors use the prologue to talk about events that happened in previous books in the series, Becca Fitzpatrick’s prologue for Hush, Hush actually serves a purpose! If you don’t read the prologue to Hush, Hush, you won’t understand the real significance of Jules’ character, and why he is so important to the story.

Another thing that I like is that when certain words, like Nephilim, are used in books, most of the time you’re left guessing what it could possibly mean! Becca Fitzpatrick does an awesome job telling you what certain words mean, by using the dialogue of the characters. Crafty!

When it comes to attention-getters, some authors can’t seem to remember what their teachers taught them in school! I don’t like reading books where it takes Â¾ of the book to REALLY get started! Although I’m a huge fan of the Twilight Saga (TEAM JACOB ALL THE WAY!) Stephanie takes up quite some time just getting things started! But Hush, Hush!? Who would’ve thought that using Human Reproduction on the first page and a jerk-of-a-guy on the next would equal success! YEY!

Despite the fact that Hush, Hush is getting more and more attention, its cover has already won five awards! Thanks to James Porto who took the amazing shot using Drew Doyon to depict Patch, Hush, Hush won: Best YA cover, Best Male-only Cover, Most unique cover, Best debut cover, AND cover of the year!

Although I’ve already read Hush, Hush 4 times, and let my cousin-in-law borrow it, I plan on reading it over and over again once I retrieve it! Thanks Becca for writing such an amazing novel! Oh yeah, and in case you haven’t noticed, I have nothing to complain about Hush, Hush; only compliments!

Hush Hush Book Youtube Video Trailer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Guest post written and submitted by Heather P. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Heather P and engage with her and fellow Hush, Hush fans and Twilight book fans.

Similar Posts:

Readers who viewed this page, also viewed: