Review - Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy #1
Genre: young adult / fantasy / romance

Pages: 332
Rating: 5/5 stars
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Summary
St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger...

Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever.

My thoughts
I recently went to see Vampire Academy and the movie really made me want to read the books, so I ordered the complete serie online. I'm really happy that it did, because I absolutely loved the first book! The main character Rose Hathaway is very outgoing, speaks her mind and she can be reckless. Her best friend Lissa is far more reserved and is really someone who always thinks things through. I really liked that the book was mainly about their friendship, while a lot of other young adult books only focus on romance. Eventhough Lissa and Rose are very different, they fit together really well. I guess they balance each other out. Rose is the one mainly doing the fighting and Lissa is the more friendly one, but they are both strong women. Rose is not always a very kind person, except towards Lissa, but somehow she wasn't annoying. I enjoyed her snarky comments and I thought she was very funny. I guess I also liked her because I could relate to her a little. I'm not a mean person, but I do tent to make a lot of sarcastic comments. Eventhough there are a lot of lighter moments, the book also deals with some heavier subjects such as dealing with bullying, forbidden love and self cutting.
The attraction between Rose and her mentor Dimitri was very interesting. Although I wanted them to be together I'm actually glad they didn't get together yet in this book. I liked that they both treated the situation realistically and thought about the consequences of them being together. 
I thought Mead introduced her story world in a very good way. She told about the different species and the way the vampire society worked. I liked that there was talked of a lot of people who where not students at St. Vladimir's Academy because that really made it look like there was a whole world out there. The story of St. Vladimir and shawdow-kissed Anna was nicely woven into the book and I liked the parallels between that story and Lissa and Rose's.
A last thing that I really liked about this book, eventhough it is a very small part of the book, is the way religion is dealt with. In a lot of young adult books either all the characters in the book are religious or none of the characters in the book are religious. I always find that a little bit irritating, because that is not at all representative for the real world. In this book some people are religious, and some people aren't, and nobody really makes a problem of it.