The first time I attempted to read Vampire Academy book one, I gave up around page 50. It was well written. It was an interesting world without being the Mary Sue Academy for Extra Special Girl Vampires like the House of Night books are, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. So it wasn’t until the second book came out that I went back and read them both.

I enjoyed Vampire Academy (book one) and Frostbite (book two) so much. Rose was a wonderful character, and her ability to see inside of her companion Lissa’s head allowed you to see beyond the normal first person urban fantasy narrative. Both books had more than enough subplots and exciting main plots to keep an adult reader entertained.

Book three – Shadow Kiss rocked my world. It’s got action. It’s got passion. It’s got so much angst and pain that it made me cry. It was a wonderful book, and I loved it from start to finish.

Then something bad happened. Book four – Blood Promise sank like a stone. Rose is searching for her lost love. Good. I want her to find Dmitri. Everyone wants her to find him. But 16 chapters of filler, with a cast of new characters that won’t matter once Rose returns to the United States from Siberia, made me want to throw my Kindle across the room. I was bored out of my skull.

Yes we were introduced to a new type of character, the Alchemists who clean up after the two types of vampires (good and evil), but we don’t see enough of them to make them interesting. I would have rather seen them introduced in their own novel than to see them from Rose’s point of view.

Rose finds her lost love. I’m not worried about this being a spoiler. It’s the only reason I was reading the book to begin with. Suddenly the novel went from boring to cliché ridden garbage. I felt like I was reading bad fanfic of a bad fanfic.

I quit reading House of Night 10 pages into Book Five. I will read Vampire Academy Book Five when it comes out. I just hope it’s better than Blood Promise, or I’ll be down another YA vampire series.

Vampire Academy Official Site