Spirit Bound (Vamp Academy book 5) Richelle Mead

Synopsis

Dimitri gave Rose the ultimate choice. But she chose wrong...

After a long and heartbreaking journey to Dimitri's birthplace in Siberia, Rose Hathaway has finally returned to St. Vladimir's-and to her best friend, Lissa. It is nearly graduation, and the girls can't wait for their real lives beyond the Academy's iron gates to begin. But Rose's heart still aches for Dimitri, and she knows he's out there, somewhere.

She failed to kill him when she had the chance. And now her worst fears are about to come true. Dimitri has tasted her blood, and now he is hunting her. And this time he won't rest until Rose joins him... forever.

Review

After the last book Blood Promise, I was really hoping that this book would be a vast improvement, and I wasn’t disappointed. There’s the 3 way love triangle between Rose, Dimitri & Adrian, and by the end of the book I really felt sorry for Adrian. I was also pleased to see the return of Abe towards the end of the book, I like this character and his relationship with Rose. I know this book is completely fiction, but I do still think some of the things she gets up to are a bit far fetched for an 18yr old, but this is pretty much a staple of this genre of books. I also cringed quite a bit at some of the things Rose says and does, which usually get her into a lot of troubled, but this is what Rose is about and the reason I like Rose so much. Lissa on the other hand can be such a girl, needing Rose to protect her, not being strong enough to do things herself. I think this may be my personal thing as I much prefer the female characters to be tough and self reliant. Saying that Lissa does come into her own in this book in an amazing way, I’m not going to spoil the story, but lets say it’s related to Dimitri.

The other character that is hard to figure out is Queen Tatiana and her relationship with Rose, Richelle keeps so many twists and turns regarding this that it makes it difficult for the reader to figure her out. There are so many twists in this book, and it has a spectacular ending that was quite a shock, especially for poor Rose. Richelle also does her usual twist at the end which hooks the reader into needing to read the next book to find out what is going to happen. I’ve never come across a writer that is as good at it as Richelle.
The thing with Spirit Bound is that it’s been difficult to write this review in my normal style, where I give my readers titbits about the storyline throughout. With this book if I talk about the storyline too much it would just be a massive spoiler for anyone wanting to read the book. Also at times I couldn't put the book down, but in some places I had to put it down and take deep breaths because it was just too much (yep the tears were back). Love, Passion, Treason, Fear, Sadness, Grief, all these emotions laid on paper in a such intense way was draining to read at times.

I would recommend this book, and I will be reading book 6, even though this series of books has had it’s ups and downs with some books better than others, I would say stick with it.

I rate this book

JRR Tolkien's books article

In an article featured in The Guardian yesterday, talks about how JRR Tolkien’s fantasy novels have been elbowed out of the annual lineup of the most popular books for schoolchildren by a deluge of dark dystopias and urban fantasies. The seventh what kids are reading report, which analyses the reading habits of over half a million children in over 2,700 UK schools, revealed today that Tolkien’s books have dropped out of the overall most popular list for the first time since the report began six years ago. In previous years, Tolkien’s titles have featured within the chart’s top 10 places, mostly among secondary-school children.

To find out more check out the article here…..

Blood Promise (Vamp Academy 4) by Richelle Mead

Synopsis

Rose Hathaway's life will never be the same.

The recent attack on St. Vladimir's Academy devastated the entire Moroi world. Many are dead. And, for the few victims carried off by Strigoi, their fates are even worse. A rare tattoo now adorns Rose's neck, a mark that says she's killed far too many Strigoi to count. But only one victim matters ... Dimitri Belikov. Rose must now choose one of two very different paths: honoring her life's vow to protect Lissa—her best friend and the last surviving Dragomir princess—or, dropping out of the Academy to strike out on her own and hunt down the man she loves. She'll have to go to the ends of the earth to find Dimitri and keep the promise he begged her to make. But the question is, when the time comes, will he want to be saved?

Now, with everything at stake—and worlds away from St. Vladimir's and her unguarded, vulnerable, and newly rebellious best friend—can Rose find the strength to destroy Dimitri? Or, will she sacrifice herself for a chance at eternal love?

Review

The book opens with Rose in Russia, seeking the damphir town called Biai, where she hopes to find Dimitri, and carry out her quest to kill him and thus release him from the life of a strigoi, which she believes he wouldn’t want to live. Along the way you meet Sydney an Alchemist part of a group of alchemist who work for the moroi & damphirs, clearing the mess they leave behind (dead strigoi). We also meet Abe the Smey (or snake), who seems to have fingers in a lot of pies some not even legal, and is the focus of a great twist at the end of the book. There are some really good new characters introduced in this book, which I hope will resurface in future storylines.

The first half of the book spends a lot of time on Rose’s quest as she finally travels to Biai and meets Dimitri’s mother, grandmother and sisters. Although this section focuses on Rose’s struggle over the loss of Dimitri and the need to hunt him down, in places I felt it was a little too overdone. I know there was a need for this part of the story, but it could have been condensed quite a bit especially as I was desperate to reach the section where Rose finally comes face to face with Dimitri.

Dimitri was always a dark handsome badass through and through, now he’s a strigoi, he has a new cold lethal edge to him, which Rose finds difficult to reconcile herself with. I love the new Dimitri, so dark and dangerous, he’s definitely got to develop further in the next books!  Richelle as usual throws a curved ball/twist to events, when Dimitri wants to turn Rose into a Strigoi. I’m not going to say what happens here as I don’t want to spoil the book for you, but lets say it becomes a very interesting read!!

Despite insurmountable odds (some a tad unbelievable)Rose finally returns to St Vladimir's and there are more twists and turns than ever which keeps you hooked needing to read the next book for answers. Richelle  can totally turn events on there head and when you thought the story was going a particular way, it goes off on a complete tangent. She is great at doing this at the end of her books, making sure you’ll go back for the next book, as there are so many questions you need answering.

There are points in the book which are a little too long, and some impossible events that you just can’t quite believe would happen, but that’s how Richelle writes. Another positive for me personally was that I wasn’t left devastated, like at the end of the last book Shadow Kissed. What I didn’t like was the constant side by side storyline where it required Rose to constantly slip into Lissa’s mind to keep that side of the story going, it wasn’t really that interesting, as in my opinion Rose and Lissa together make for a much stronger storyline. There were also a lot of flashbacks going on between Rose and Dimitri as well, some of which had great inconsistency with what you knew already story wise and some you’d never heard of. I know you have to pad out the storyline, but this could be better.

Overall a good book, but not as good as Shadow Kissed which left it’s readers devastated at the loss of Dimitri. I think that as the last book was such a good one, it needed a brilliant book to follow it, unfortunately this isn’t it, so lets hope book five improves the storyline and reaches the heights of Shadow kissed. In saying that this is an ok book, and I would definitely say, stick with it and read to the end of the series.

I rate this book