I rewatched the Vampire Academy movie recently, which inspired me to pick up its spin off series. I think this book was a really great introduction into a new series. There was enough balance of the old and the new to invoke both a nostalgia and a renewed interest.

Sydney is very different from Rose, but I think that's important. If we wanted a heroine like Rose, than Richelle Mead would have written more books from Rose's perspective. I found Sydney's moral dilemma throughout the book really intriguing, but she did suffer from being a little too perfect. I understand that she is incredibly smart given her education and it made sense for her to excel at academics. But you're telling me she was perfect at minigolf on her first time playing? Sure, you can understand angles and geometry, but she knows how to apply the exact force needed without having EVER played before? Yeah, that's some bullshit.

Truly the worst part of the book, and frankly it was pretty hard for me to overcome this, was

the age difference between Jill and Lee, especially when it was revealed how old he actually was. Like he was solidly in his thirties. Even when he was assumed to be 19, it was still creepy but then when you realize he was basically double her age? YUCK. Lee is just as bad as Keith, worse in some ways, and yet it didn't come across that way in the narration. Like there needed to be a serious discussion about the manipulation of Jill and how terrible that was. At least Keith was portrayed as directly villianous pretty much the whole narration.

Actually the more I type this, the more I realize this book is two stars instead of three solely due to the complete mishandling of this issue.