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littleredmacks 's review for:
Vampire Academy
by Richelle Mead
I read these for the first time in middle school when they first came out. However after watching the TV series Peacock put out I had a sense of nostalgia and wanted to reread.
Rereading as an adult is interesting to say the least and I’m glad I annotated these copies when I first read them so I could see my middle school girl thought process.
The word building is repetitive. You will not forget any of the important stuff because it comes up multiple times. The plot is also slow. Way slower than I remember. It’s kept going through a bunch of minor conflict and you don’t see the major conflict until the last 75ish (maybe) pages.
I will say that I do take issue with Rose exhibiting slutty behavior but then shaming other girls for doing the same. I can forgive the “blood whore” thing because indoctrination is a powerful thing and when you’ve grown up with that sort of thought and view it’s hard to challenge and shake it. However I don’t think the slamming of other women is at all necessary when she’s doing similar things. That being said she is also 17 and you can make yourself the exception to all sorts of things when you’re 17.
In some sense it does make her a realistic character as there are a lot of traits she exhibits that are very much like a teenager. I also know that some of her character traits are a result of her being “shadow kissed” so I feel like that helps me excuse some of it.
As an adult I’m not the biggest fan of the fact that her love interest is her teacher when she’s 17. I feel like girls in the 17-19 age range are over-sexualized by media in general and when media makes it seem like it’s okay to have a relationship with 24, 25, 26, or even older men, that doesn’t send a great message to those age groups. That’s not to say I don’t like age gap romances. I just have issue with the trope of older man with 17-19 year old girl. Also in the first book at least, (and I don’t remember if it gets better) but they don’t really have any reasons to be together? They have very little in common on so many grounds and many times it feels like the author is just trying to smash them together.
I do feel like all the teenage characters read like petty teenagers so if you struggle with that this will not be the book for you.
Overall I wish this series had also explored more with the politics of it all and the fact that dhampirs are raised simply to be guardians and are shamed for attempting to do anything else with their life. I feel like that could have added a new depth to the story. Especially considering how flawed the logic is behind them being raised to be guardians. They claim it’s to continue the line of dhampirs but why would you want to continue the line when you don’t get a life out of it? And how have these antiquated rules not been challenged? (I do enjoy that the TV show challenged this idea and switched up the world building a bit so it made slightly more sense).
Rereading as an adult is interesting to say the least and I’m glad I annotated these copies when I first read them so I could see my middle school girl thought process.
The word building is repetitive. You will not forget any of the important stuff because it comes up multiple times. The plot is also slow. Way slower than I remember. It’s kept going through a bunch of minor conflict and you don’t see the major conflict until the last 75ish (maybe) pages.
I will say that I do take issue with Rose exhibiting slutty behavior but then shaming other girls for doing the same. I can forgive the “blood whore” thing because indoctrination is a powerful thing and when you’ve grown up with that sort of thought and view it’s hard to challenge and shake it. However I don’t think the slamming of other women is at all necessary when she’s doing similar things. That being said she is also 17 and you can make yourself the exception to all sorts of things when you’re 17.
In some sense it does make her a realistic character as there are a lot of traits she exhibits that are very much like a teenager. I also know that some of her character traits are a result of her being “shadow kissed” so I feel like that helps me excuse some of it.
As an adult I’m not the biggest fan of the fact that her love interest is her teacher when she’s 17. I feel like girls in the 17-19 age range are over-sexualized by media in general and when media makes it seem like it’s okay to have a relationship with 24, 25, 26, or even older men, that doesn’t send a great message to those age groups. That’s not to say I don’t like age gap romances. I just have issue with the trope of older man with 17-19 year old girl. Also in the first book at least, (and I don’t remember if it gets better) but they don’t really have any reasons to be together? They have very little in common on so many grounds and many times it feels like the author is just trying to smash them together.
I do feel like all the teenage characters read like petty teenagers so if you struggle with that this will not be the book for you.
Overall I wish this series had also explored more with the politics of it all and the fact that dhampirs are raised simply to be guardians and are shamed for attempting to do anything else with their life. I feel like that could have added a new depth to the story. Especially considering how flawed the logic is behind them being raised to be guardians. They claim it’s to continue the line of dhampirs but why would you want to continue the line when you don’t get a life out of it? And how have these antiquated rules not been challenged? (I do enjoy that the TV show challenged this idea and switched up the world building a bit so it made slightly more sense).