Synopsis: Richelle Mead’s 6-book series follows the
story of 17 year-old dhampir Rose Hathaway. To save you all an over-long
synopsis – which I am terribly prone to – I’ll give you the basics. Rose and
her friends belong to an underground vampiric society. Dhampirs (half-humans,
half-vampires like Rose) pledge their lives to protect Moroi (living vampires
that are able to wield elemental magic) from the Strigoi (undead vampires who
kill without remorse). To Rose, it’s a given that after graduation, she’ll be
assigned as guardian to Princess Vasilisa (Lissa) Dragomir, her best friend. Rose
is uniquely qualified to protect Lissa – the two girls are bonded, which means
Rose is able to “feel” Lissa’s thoughts, and can even slip into her mind at
will. Lissa is a spirit user, enabling her to heal, read auras, and use
compulsion to influence others, among other powers. Lissa’s power brought Rose
back from the dead after a car crash that killed Lissa’s parents and brother.
But, being shadow-kissed has other, not so desirable consequences for Rose,
which she must come to terms with in order to protect Lissa. The series starts
with Lissa and Rose’s return to St. Vladimir’s Academy, and follows their
journey (with romance, mystery, and murder all thrown in for good measure, of
course).
Rating: 11 out of 10. No. Seriously.
Discussion:
There are just some things that
being a Joss Whedon fan does to you. For one, it makes you skeptical of young
adult vampire fiction that’s not Buffy
the Vampire Slayer. Buffy was one
of my earliest exposures to vampire lore, and I’m not sure I can adequately
express how big of a fan I am of the show. When you love something as much as I
love Buffy, it’s hard for other entries
in the genre to compare. For that reason, I’ve avoided a lot of young adult
vampire fiction, mostly because everything I’ve read just doesn’t measure up to
my beloved Buffy. So thanks, Joss,
for making me a teenage vampire snob.
And then there’s Twilight. A very good friend gave me the
first book for my birthday not long after the series started gaining popular
momentum. Despite not enjoying the first book, I read the entire series (I
couldn’t help it – I have a thing for not finishing series once I start them),
getting more and more frustrated as I went along. Joss Whedon proved that
smart, well-written teenage vampire fiction was possible, but Stephanie Meyer
blew it big time. After that, I became even more disillusioned with the genre
as a whole.
So,
when a coworker recommended Vampire
Academy, I was very skeptical. This was precisely the kind of thing I’d
been avoiding. But, I decided to give it a chance, equally because I’m willing
to read pretty much anything and because I really like Sierra (the girl who
recommended the books). Now, after having finished all 6 books, I can say that
I’m so glad I took the chance. I am so completely in love with this series, I
almost can’t stand it. However, thanks to Twilight,
I feel a slightly irrational need to justify why I love these books, which is
obnoxious (and something for which I hold Stephanie Meyer personally
responsible). But I should throw in a disclaimer: this is going to be a long
entry.
There
will be lots of spoilers to follow, but I’ll start with a spoiler-free PSA. If
you read no further, at least pay attention to this: go read these damn books. I definitely didn’t expect it, but reading
this series changed me, the same way Harry
Potter, The Dark Tower, and Stargate
all have. These books brought out emotions in me that I haven’t felt very often,
and the reaction they provoked in me has given me a lot of pause over the last
few weeks. I’m the type to get lost in fiction, to be sure, but something about
this series has captivated me in a way that completely caught me off guard.
Sometimes, my mind blurs the line between fiction and reality (which probably
signals that I need massive amounts of therapy, but I digress), but it honestly
doesn’t happen all that often. Reading this series, I spent I don’t know how
many hours worrying about what would happen to Rose and her friends. After I
finished the third book, I was so, so emotionally distraught – it was like
these things were happening to people I actually knew. Honestly, I can count on
one hand the number of times I’ve had such an emotional response to fiction (1
– Sirius’ death in Order of the Phoenix,
the end of Roland’s tale in Wizard and
Glass, and Daniel’s ascension in Stargate:
SG1), and I was utterly flabbergasted to feel those same kinds of feelings
from – gasp – a young adult vampire series. So, if you trust me (and trust my
instincts when it comes to books), please do yourself a favor and at least give
this series a shot. If it impacts you the same way it has me, you owe it to
yourself to experience these characters.
Okay,
now back to your regularly scheduled book review…
Since Joss Whedon defined my opinion
of this particular genre, I’m going to be drawing a LOT of comparisons between Vampire Academy and Buffy, but I’ll start with some technical evaluation of Mead’s
writing style. Mead’s characters are, for the most part, incredibly complex and
dynamic. All of her main characters – Rose, Dimitri, and Lissa – show
significant growth over the course of the series and feel more like “real
people” than a lot of the real people I know. Major-minor characters like
Christian and Adrian are dynamic as well, growing as “people”, shaped by the
experiences they have. Even minor characters like Mikhail and Victor show
surprising complexity. To me, being able to adequately convey that kind of
complexity in characters we don’t see very often is far more impressive than
what Mead does with her protagonists. I feel like there’s so much more going on
with all of Mead’s characters than meets the eye, which is refreshing when so
much adolescent fiction is filled with a handful of round characters, while
most minor characters are flat and archetypal.
Each book in the series builds on
itself the way you expect a novel to, but the individual books work well in
series together, giving you the overall picture of Rose’s coming of age story
while still retaining their individual integrity. It feels like Mead had a plan
in mind all along (or she’s very good at pulling threads together in
afterthought), and the series as a whole is a solid bit of storytelling. My one
– albeit minor – criticism is the exposition she provides at some point near
the beginning of books two through six. I probably noticed it more because I
read the books in quick succession, but I could have done without the reminders
of what went on in previous books (including a recap of the Moroi-Strigoi-Dhampir
dynamic). However, I also understand that Mead can’t expect her readers to blow
through the series like I did, and a certain amount of “previously on” is to be
expected in a young adult series (see Harry
Potter for reference), so I can forgive her that, based on the quality of
the series as a whole. Overall, Mead does solid work, weaving her tale over the
course of six very good books.
One thing that I really loved about
this series was the ending and the way Mead handled the resolution. Clearly,
she had been building to this particular resolution since at least book 2 – or,
at least that’s when it became apparent that something greater was at work than
whatever was going on at St. Vladimir’s Academy. But, moving through the
series, so many mini-mysteries spin off that you naturally want to find
resolution for. It’s incredibly difficult for authors to pull of a satisfying
resolution across a multi-book series. After a certain point, the plot arc
becomes so unwieldy, that it’s difficult to wrap up each sub-plot and the main
conflict in a satisfactory way. So, some authors avoid a real resolution
altogether (ahem, Stephen King) or wind up with something so “fairy tale” that
it looses it’s effectiveness (i.e. JK Rowling’s Epilogue from Deathly Hallows).
What I find so satisfying about
Mead’s resolution is that it isn’t complete. Yes, Rose’s main story is wrapped
up in a nice little package, but so many questions are left unanswered. After
finishing the series, I still wanted to know where Adrian would go, what would
happen to Jill, if Sonya would be able to find acceptance, where Robert got to,
and on and on, for so many minor characters. That, to me, is a mark of
excellent writing – that I want these details that don’t really have much to do
with the protagonist’s story. Something that leaves me wanting more is far more
satisfying than having all the answers, in a lot of ways.
Also, I adored the fact that Rose’s
ending wasn’t completely happy. Yes, everything turned out far, far better for
her than you thought it might at a hundred different points in the series. And
I won’t even pretend to disguise my glee at how Rose’s life ends up at the end
of the series. But it’s not perfect. Rose and Dimitri have conversation very
near the end of the sixth book where Rose is concerned that she’s ruined
people’s lives to get her happiness. Rose’s concerns are valid – Adrian, Jill,
Victor, Lissa, and Christian (to name a few) all suffer based on Rose’s
actions. She never intended for people close to her to get hurt, but that’s how
it worked out, and Rose feels a considerable amount of guilt over all of that,
like she doesn’t deserve to be happy. I love that about her – even though she
has everything she wants (essentially), so much had to be sacrificed and lost
along the way. Dimitri reassures her, of course, and Rose’s guilt doesn’t bog
down the ending.
On
the contrary – for me, that moment elevates the entire series to something
greater. Happy endings are common in literature, especially in young adult
literature. After all, one of the (often unstated) goals in young adult
literature is to reaffirm values and instill a sense of normalcy in the teen reader,
so authors tend to gravitate towards an ending in which everything is “okay”.
However, things don’t always work out that way in real life, and I think it’s
important for characters to ask those difficult questions of themselves – “did
I do the right thing?” – and, in turn, inspire readers to make those same
internal investigations. When Rose questions everything she’s done, it serves
as a reminder to readers that our actions impact others. So yes, Rose gets her
happy ending, but it’s tempered with just enough doubt and heartache to feel
incredibly real.
Okay. I apparently
have a lot more to say than I thought…For now, I’ll leave you here, and pick up
next time with my Buffy comparisons.
Mischief Managed,
Slim Pearl
Silver-Feather
Currently Reading:
Nothing! I’m on a self-imposed hiatus until I can get caught up with this blog!
Books
Read in 2012: 19
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