I have shied away from vampire books as they generally are not for me, but I kept hearing about Vampire Academy from different people, so decided to try it and was pleasantly surprised. Maybe because it is about vampires in a whole vampire society, not how they interact with humans, I'm not sure, but the vampire part of the story was not in the forefront. Instead, it was about these kids with unique challenges in a boarding school, who happen to be vampires and half-humans training to protect the vampires.

Mead does a good job of creating the world of this boarding school, the routines, the cliques, the bullying, the politics and the pettiness. Even though many of these are taken to the extreme, I'm sure most teenagers will relate to these characters. There is even romance and adventure.

I really liked Rose and the story is told from her point of view. She is strong, gutsy, feisty, and no nonsense. She also shows some really good growth in the book. I loved her friendship with Lissa, her best friend. Their connection is so interesting, but I also loved reading a book that is largely about the friendship of these two girls. All of the other story lines, the romances and the drama, supported this major theme.

Lissa is a great foil for Rose, part of a whole other social circle. There is a story line where she has self destructive tendencies that I think the author handles really well and matter of factly. She goes into the reasons, the emotions, and the fact that she ultimately needs help beyond what her friend can give her.

Actually, there are several issues mentioned in the book, such as sex, drugs and drinking. These seemed authentic to me to how teens act and I liked how Rose thought about where her boundaries were for these things.

I enjoyed reading this book and would definitely recommend it, especially to teen girls.

I'll be honest. I tried to read this about 6 years ago, but I found it kind of boring, so I stopped. Than last year I saw it on my book shelf and thought, what the heck, I'll just read it. So, I did and I didn't stop. I thought it was amazing. It was just so different from anything I've read before.

***CONTAINS SPOILERS***

It seems I have been sucked into a very money hungry world. That is, the world of the young adult vampire books. They don't just come in one novel, but numerous novels, meant to drain your pocketbook and enhance your knowledge of fictional worlds!

However, much as I hate to see my money dwindling, I am happy to have found more hits than misses with these books. The Vampire Academy series is definitely shaping out to be a hit.

The best thing about this book - aside from the fact that you won't want to put it down! - is that it's different from other vampire novels out there. Much like the Harry Potter series (which has nothing to do with vampires, in case you were wondering), the vampires (or Moroi, as they're referred to) attend a private school for protection training. Also, like Harry Potter, there's a group of bad people (kind of like Voldemort and his followers) out to get the Moroi - the Strigoi. The difference is that instead of the Strigoi just going after one individual, it's the whole vampire (Moroi) race they intend to kill. Unlike Harry Potter, where the wizards are taught to protect themselves, the Moroi have protectors - the Dhampirs. The Dhampirs are trained in combat and learn how to protect the Moroi from the Strigoi. They eventually become Guardians and are usually assigned to protect the more higher-up of the Moroi race.

You could say that this series is a House of Night rip-off, since those vamps go to school, too, and they're always dealing with the elements (something that each Moroi specializes in - earth, air, fire, or water), but these vampires don't really learn how to fight. In fact, they deal more with the history of their kind and how to work with their element. They are able to do magic with that element, but it's forbidden to use in the real world. Unlike the House of Night, these characters don't use kiddie language (I'm so sick of some of Zoe's swear words) - they seem so much more adult and grown up. Yes, there is sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

OK, maybe no rock and roll, but you get the gist.

After reading the first book in the series, I couldn't wait to keep reading more. It took a little getting used to, what with the new terminology and the fact that one of the main characters, Rose, seems to have liked feeding her best friend, Lissa, just a little too much, but it was all totally worth it in the end. I left this book desperately needing Rose and Dimitri (her hot mentor) to hook up and the seriousness of why they couldn't hook up (i.e. they'd both be Guardians and would rather protect each other, instead of the Moroi they're supposed to protect) made it all so real.

There's nothing baby-ish about this book - start reading the series and find out for yourself!

This book was very confusing too me... 3 different vampires with a lot of information at once. It was hard to keep reading and I was not that-in-to-it. I was telling myself that I need to read the book till the end because of all the review that I saw about this series. After this 1st book I decided to purchase the 2nd one and the same thing happens. But at the 3rd one wow... from there on, I could not let it go. This was a great series, it was a slow start for me but it finally got better and better. This series is a MOST READ but please be patient because the 1st and 2nd book are not the best one ... Enjoy!