Vampire Academy (June Group Read)

[Char]

I am determined to get the others as sometimes they do get better and I want to read more Dimitri and Christian, I liked both of the guys.

I know they could have, I haven't read book 8, I might wait until the whole series is out (I think there's going to be 12). I'm not expecting much though, they're rush releasing them.

I know, she's sweet but the books just aren't up to much. I loved the first one, then the rest kind of aren't.

Ranting is fine. I do loads of it lol. I won't I'll definitely keep reading. =)

[Alexandra]

haha, good. :)

Trust me, book 8 is a little better, but I still don't like the look of where PC is taking the characters...

I agree, the first was good, the rest just kinda burned out and died. SLOWLY. but oh well.

Ranting is my favourite past-time. HELL YES. :)

Dimitri is just so... delectable. You will definitely not be dissapointed. And there is more where that came from i can assure you!!!! :P

[Char]

Is it? I might read it then, but it's pretty far down my pile. My to read pile is WAY too big. =)

It did, I was sad, it could have been so good.

Mine too. I do it way too much.

He is gorgeous. Woo =P

[Alexandra]

LOL. So funny. Wait until you meet Adrian... (possibly even better, even though it pains me to suggest it)

Your to read pile is huge??? Give me some ideas of what to read next then!!!! I'm kinda stuck now. Exams are over and i suddenly find myself with all this free time.

Recommendations please!! :)

[Char]

Lol, I don't know how I'll be able to cope with all these VA cuties. Seriously.

It's massive. Hmm, what do you like?

One of my favourite series is the Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink.

I also really like Strange Angels by Lili st. Crow.

A lot of my favourite books aren't paranormal romance/urban fantasy. =)

[Alexandra]

God, what do you think I am?!! Haha, just because I'm a seventeen year old who likes VA doesn't mean i don't have other interests. I read anything. SERIOUSLY ANYTHING. I even attempted a French book once out of boredom.

Whatever you recommend, i shall like. I'm that easy to please. :)
I shall have a look at these then... :P

[Char]

I didn't mean it like that! It's the genre everyone tends to read right now! I'll never read a French book, this may be because I don't understand a word of French but then again, I may want to one day.

Okay some of my other favourites: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Stolen: A letter to my captor by Lucy Christopher

Lol. Wow, that's pretty easy, I can be pretty fussy.
Okay then =P

[Alexandra]

Heah, I didn't understand a word of it either... but it passed the time.

Sorry, bit tetchy 'bout stereotypes... :P

Thanks, I shall give them a go. I've actually gone and ordered Between Shades of Gray, which is kinda spooky!

I think I've heard of Stolen too...
:)

[Char]

Haha, so I guess you didn't review it once you'd finished? =P

It's fine, I would be too. It was entirely my bad. =P

Oooh. It's my favourite read of the whole year.

Stolen was my favourite read of 2009 =) I only recommend my absolute favourites. =D

[Alexandra]

Good good, glad to hear it! I am slowly adding all the books I have recently read to this and trying to review them... it's just VERY time consuming. And the fact that some have different names in different countries doesn't help!!

I appreciate the best recommendations!! :D lol.

[Char]

Haha, I still haven't added all my books to Goodreads and I've been a member for ages. I can't be bothered mainly. I just go with the English ones, what with me being English and everything.

Doesn't everybody? lol =D

[Alexandra]

Haha, too right. :)

I get a spare minute, I add another book. Rifling through my very (annoyingly) large collection and my memory to remember them is difficult...

I hate the fact Americans have to have their own name for books, just my main nag. WHY not keep our name??? but hey, don't wanna offend!!!

lol. oh, what's your fave genre??

[Char]

I do that, but my collection is also huge and every time I get them out to add some more my pet cat promptly jumps on top of them. It makes it very difficult. =D

I know! This frustrates me too. I was actually talking about it earlier because one of the books I'm reading the Americans changed the name of. I want to be able to buy a book and know what it's called.

I don't know really, I have different phases. I do like realistic fiction a lot. They tend to be my favourites. I also read a lot of paranormal romance and urban fantasy even though they annoy me. I also like dystopian... but not the Hunger Games. I seem to dislike a lot of well hyped books. What about you? =)

[Alexandra]

Dystopian - yes. We just about to start it at A2, so thumbs up :)

Moi? I read all sorts, and yes, i have to admit my guilty pleasures are YA and paranormal books... :s I just love to cringe at them and the mindlessness of them can be very therapuetic :)

I really enjoy realistic fiction, things that are moving and make you appreciate the world the most. I just finished rereading Before I Die, which really makes you thank your lucky stars for your life.

I also have an embarassing love of grisly crime/horror books, but that's due to my grandma... she lends me these books, and i can't resist!!!! I see an unread book, i MUST read it.. :P lol.

[Char]

Dystopian can be pretty good - One of my favourites is the Numbers trilogy.

Yup, we have the same guilty pleasure, although I'm not sure it's healthy for a 20 year old but never mind. Some of them are pretty bad, it makes me feel good about my writing abilities. I also like how you don't have to think about them.

Yes, I love Before I Die. Have you read her other book You Against Me? That one's pretty good.

Snap! Only, I got it off my mum, she just finishes them and leaves them lying around and then they somehow end up in my room. Don't ask me how. =P lol

I guess we both read a bit of everything then lol =P

[Alexandra]

lol, you sound like my friend Angel... twenty is scaringly close, so don't put me off!!! hahaha.

I have read You Against Me, thought it was great!!! I am really liking her style. It's a welcome change to all this crazily repetitive vamp stuff.

Whoa, we're like twins.... spoooky... XD

[Char]

Lol, I'm sorry. I'll just be quiet even though twenty is pretty awesome.

I loved it, I loved how the love story wasn't clean cut but there wasn't a billion people involved. I adore her style, I can't wait to see what she comes out with next. It really is, it makes browsing the YA shelves worth it. =D

We are, freaky. XD

[Alexandra]

Definitely worth it :) I just check her website. A LOT.

I shall let you in on a secret about book shops... the best books are hidden very sneakily... (admittedly, i hide the best books when browsing so i can go back the next day and buy them...) :P lol.

hahahaha!!!

[Char]

=) I know, I can't wait for her new book. Whenever that happens lol.

Lol. =P They know me too well at my local book shop. Damn WHSmiths lol. If they don't have them I go on Amazon where they tend to be a couple of pounds cheaper. That's my big secret to my giant book collection. =P

[Alexandra]

Mmm Hmm, me too. I look at like a bazillion sites and then save so much i can buy three times more!!! YAY :D

I am waiting (not patiently) for a lot of books right now. It's not good :L

[Char]

YAY! Gotta love internet shopping. XD

I know, I hate having to wait for books to come out. I want them to just materialise when I've finished the last one. =D

[Alexandra]

too right... XD

[Char]

Haha XD

[Rea, Ghost]

This conversation went weird!

This bit is for those who have read the WHOLE of the VA series. Fair warning.
(view spoiler)[I feel a bit frustrated by the ending to the series. I don't feel like it's an actual ending. There are so many things that are not wrapped up, or things that were mentioned in passing.
Ie, the "Keepers" in the woods and Angeline. We spend, what? about 100 pages with them and then they disappear never to be mentioned again. Well then, why mention them in the first place?
The thing that irks me the most though is that after his return from the undeath in book 5, Dimitri doesn't even bother to contact his family to let them know he's alive again! He knows they know he got turned into a Strigoi because he was talking to Rose about it in book 4. Wouldn't he have wanted to let them know of his miraculous return sooner rather than later?
On that same point, Read never bothered to explain Dimitri's motives in book 4. Throughout the whole of book 6, I was hoping that she'd go into detail about what Strigoi Dimitri was thinking when he kidnapped Rose and wanted her to join him. Was it a spill over of love from life that turned to obsession in undeath? Was it just seeing Rose as a good choice of sidekick because of how good a guardian she is? I wanted to know his motives, and she never bothered to explain them, just kept going on and on about how "Dimitri can't forgive himself for what he did to Rose in Russia." Ok, so he did it, but WHY did he do it? (hide spoiler)]

And this one is more related to the first book as well as the whole series.
(view spoiler)[A lot of people seem to complain about the relationship because Dimitri is so much older than Rose. Am I the only one who just really does not care? It's a 7 year age gap and Rose is old enough to make her own decisions as any 17 year old girl will tell you. If Dimitri were 60, sure, but 24 is still pretty young. It's not a big deal. Get over it. (hide spoiler)]

Also, I disagree with what you say about it getting better, Alexandra (Alex?). The quality goes downhill. There's even more filler (Was Mead filling a word quota or something?). The idea behind each story gets better each time, but the way she writes it leaves a lot to be desired.
Books 2, 3 and 4 are all like book 1 - filler, filler, filler, filler, ACTION! Book 5 has a bit of action at the start, then filler, then a bit more action, the filler, then angst, then shocker ending. Book 6 is mostly Dimitri - Rose relationship filler with a bit of action around it once every so often.
She's writing 3 series at the same time - and most years she brought out two VA books - and I think that in that case the authors push more for production than quality.

And I like to read historical stuff. :p And fantasy. Though not so much PNR anymore because it's gone mad in the past few years and it's very difficult to find quality anymore.

[Alicia]

VA series is great. i love it. It doesnt loose its charm ever in the series

[Chris]

Rea wrote: "This conversation went weird!

This bit is for those who have read the WHOLE of the VA series. Fair warning.
[spoilers removed]

And this one is more related to the first book as well as the whole ..."

I really loved the ending with unanswered questions, I don't like when the author imposes on the reader a specific ending, and wraps up the whole story. In VA you get to imagine a whole other ending after (for those who read LAST SACRIFICE),(view spoiler)[ After Lissa becomes Queen, what happens with Adrian and Jill, with Rose and Dimitri, even with Lissa and Rose (WITHOUT THE BOND= sucks :( (hide spoiler)]

[Rea, Ghost]

I don't mind some unanswered questions at the end of a series, but really the VA series should have been wrapped up better, we should have known what happened to each of the characters. Spoilers pertaining to last book ahead:
(view spoiler)[The ending to Last Sacrifice really was just putting in place the bits and pieces required to write Sydney's spinoff: Adrian, Eddie, Jill and Sydney - none of them are given a proper ending in VA series, which they should have.
The Dimitri thing is more just personal taste because I really REALLY wanted to know what was going through his evil mind. But I stand by my point that Angeline should not have been introduced if she was just to leave her as she was - I think she's another one being set up for the spinoff. (hide spoiler)]

She has announced that she will write a short story about Rose and Dimitri visiting Russia, and his family, that will be released in an anthology in late 2012. That's cool and all, but really it should have been in the series and not a companion novella to it.

[Chris]

You are right! The series should have been wrapped up better, but I guess like you said she is saving the rest for the spin-off series (which is a bad choice)

[Rea, Ghost]

Yeah, it bugs me that if I want to get an end to the other characters' stories I'll have to keep reading. Only Rose's story is wrapped up, really.

Did anyone else notice the huge problems this woman has with syntax? There are an unbelievably high number of sentences where the word order is all wrong.

[Jeshu]

I'll start this next week :D

[Char]

Awesome, let us know what you think. =D

[Kristen]

I've read the entire series. The first book is mostly just background information to get you ready for the rest of the series. If you read a lot of books that are in a series, most authors tend to do that.

I just know that this series is one of my top 3 favorite series.

[Char]

To be honest I disagree Kristen, I don't think most books are background to the rest of the series. Most first books manage to cram in the much needed background with an actual story. Vampire Academy lacked that for me.

What did you like about the book?

[Rea, Ghost]

I agree, each book in a series needs to be able to hold its own, rather than just serve as filler for the juicy stuff that's coming. If all the filler and random useless stuff had been cut, VA could have been reduced to a really good trilogy (albeit one with a main character I dislike) but as it is, it stretches on too much and there's a bit too much filler that doesn't lead to consequences (especially in the last book, which is stupid as it's a last book so everything should be tied up, not yet more paths opened).

[Hannah]

I've read VA and Frostbite. I loved both. I've heard that the story kind of drags out though and that it gets to be kind of boring. I'm hoping this is not true and that it continues being as good as the first 2 :)

[Rea, Ghost]

The ending to book 3 was good, Hannah. That was the high point of the series, for me. After that it drags a lot and is full of weird decisions that don't really make sense.

[Jeshu]

Guess qhat I'll start in the next five minutes? Yes, vampire academy! Finally XD

[Char]

Woo! Go you. Let us know what you think. I personally wasn't a fan, but it seems in in a minority. XD

[Jeshu]

Well, I'm in hcapter 14 now xD It's a very easy read, I'm enjoying it, but I'm not impressed at all. Definitely not a masterpiece.
Am I weird because I like Christian? XD

[Rea, Ghost]

Not at all! I like Christian, too. He's one of the more balanced characters. It's easier to associate with his actions than Rose's or Lissa's. At least, it is for me.

[Jeshu]

I couldn't relate to any of the heroines. Even Dimitri was quite indifferent to me. Maybe he was badass, but nothing beyond that. I couldn't perrceive his hotness/god-like being, to be honest.
But I melted with Christian, I wish he appeared more :(

[Rea, Ghost]

I could relate to Lissa more than Rose. Rose is... I don't know. But I can't understand why people would flock to her, as they seem to do in the book, as if I knew someone like that I'd just want to punch some sense into them!

Well, I conjured up my own image of Dimitri that was hot! But it wasn't his god-like being that did it for me, but more how reserved he is and yet still intense in everything he does. He's the silent, brooding type. Christian's a badass, which is also good! I felt for him, how he was ostracised from the school social scene because of something his parents did. He was a good character!

[Char]

I love Christian! =) Him and Dimitri were my two favourite characters, (I also tweaked Dimitri.) I didn't like Lissa, I detested Rose and I think I want Christian to have his own series. I would buy that, and enjoy it, if he stays the way he is in this book. =D

[Rea, Ghost]

Oooh Christian with his own series would be interesting! And you'd get lots of Dimitri yuminess in it too as (view spoiler)[Dimitri ends up as Christian's guardian (hide spoiler)]. Yey!! :)

[Char]

See, I am a master of interesting ideas... maybe I should sell my idea to Miss Mead? Lol =P

[Rea, Ghost]

Lol, no! Just leave it in ours heads as Mead will find some way of murdering the idea if VA is anything to go by.

[Char]

Haha, Maybe I should do a Cassandra Clare and write it myself and watch it become a popular fan fic and then release my own work. =P

Actually I just thought that through that would mean extensive research on VA....

[Rea, Ghost]

Oh yeah, she wrote about Malfoy didn't she? I've never read her work. I've heard it's all self-insert like Twlight. And it has creepy incestual relations. That was enough to put me off.

That's not hard. All you have to do is take notes while reading. I think she says absolutely everything there is to say about absolutely everything (view spoiler)[(except Strigoi Dimitri's motivations, which is the one and only thing I actually wanted to know about!!) (hide spoiler)]. Oh, my review for all VA books are on my blog now, but they're very spoiler heavy, especially the last one.

[Char]

Yup she did. I have a couple because I got them cheap. I've heard essentially it's all a rip off of stuff like Buffy. That in itself has made me intrigued.

That's true. I could just make lots of notes about Christian. Then I could write the story. Awesome, I read the first two but decided not to go further, I will read them as I go along.

Good news! My library has got Frostbite in! XD I should totally go see about picking it up.

[Jeshu]

Yes!!!! please!!! A story for Christian, I'd buy all the editions XD
I'll read the rest of the series only to read more about him, fu fu fu.