Review: Bloodlines

For my biggest fan-

I am a big fan of Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series, so when I heard she was writing a spin off, I was insanely excited! I loved the world that Mead created, it was new, unusual and completely different from other Vampire YA out there. She tackled tough issues like dating someone older, betrayal and cheating on someone you care about. She also integrated the idea of Alchemy into her books, something that is rarely seen in YA. For those of you who don't know Alchemy can be viewed as a precursor to modern chemistry. However, alchemy also includes various non-scientific mythical and spiritual concepts, theories and practices. In Bloodlines the role of the alchemist is more fully developed and Mead creates a heroine whose Alchemy is rooted in Christianity and purity of the soul. Very intriguing.

Mead last left her readers with Rose and Dimitri riding off into the sunset, and the other characters a little less decidedly settled. Sydney Sage, an Alchemist gone rogue, must face the consequences of helping Rose and Dimitri. Her fellow alchemist's view her as a "vamp-lover" a traitor to her own kind. Sydney herself is torn, she has been raised to believe that Moroi, Strigoi and Dhampirs are evil incarnate, unnatural and an abomination of the soul. She knows what she is supposed to believe and how she needs to act but she is questioning the very foundation of who she is. To top it off, she also faces re-education, a procedure that has left other Alchemist's as robots or worse. To save her sister from the life of Alchemy, Sydney steps in for a mission to protect the young and newly discovered Dragomir princess, Jill. Her older sister Lissa is Queen of the Moroi, and in order to keep her throne, she must keep her only family member alive. When an attempt is made on Jill's life, she is sent into hiding at a boarding school in Palm Springs, with Sydney as her new roommate, Eddie as her Guardian and Adrian...well Adrian is a bit of a mystery. In addition to Sydney's job of keeping Jill alive and hidden from the human population, she also must deal with mysterious tattoos that give the owner's supernatural power, a complicated relationship with Adrian, and a complete lack of social skills after being home-schooled her entire life. Needless to say she has a lot on her plate.

At first it was hard for me to transition away from Rose and Dimitri, I enjoyed this new story but I still missed the characters that I fell in love with. My comfort was immediately Adrian, although I was a hardcore Rose and Dimitri fan, I absolutely adored Adrian and his snarky attitude. Having him back allowed for an easier transition into a new series and I was actually very excited to see his character develop. Right away you are instantly reminded of how badly Rose damaged Adrian, he is still a wreck and it broke my heart to see how hurt he was. On the other hand, Sydney is not the most lovable character in the world, but I really, really liked her as she grew and developed. She struggles with nearly everything in her life, but doesn't complain. She is incredibly smart, intuitive and caring (even if she doesn't always let that show). She is a type A personality, someone who thrives on organization but begins to let that go as she gets deeper into the Moroi world. Her black and white views of vampires begin to change to gray as she gets to know Jill, Adrian and Eddie better. Let's just say that her heart does begin to feel something for Adrian (I mean really, who could resist him!). The plot in Bloodlines does move slowly, I think mainly because Mead is setting up an entirely new story for her characters, a lot of the twists and turns are fairly predictable for any VA reader but that doesn't make it terrible. The ending leaves readers with a HUGE cliffhanger, and the appearance of a much beloved character from VA. It leaves it open to an interesting storyline for the next installment. I highly recommend this to any fan of Vampire Academy, you will not be disappointed! I can only hope in the next book we get to more development between Adrian and Sydney and perhaps a little bit of steam if we are lucky ;)