Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead

Spoilers for all six books are contained within. Beware!

Title: Last Sacrifice
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: December 7th, 2010
Pages: 594 pages (hardback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it from Amazon.

Rose Hathaway has always played by her own rules. She broke the law when she ran away from St. Vladimir's Academy with her best friend and last surviving Dragomir princess, Lissa. She broke the law when she fell in love with her gorgeous, off-limits instructor, Dimitri. And she dared to defy Queen Tatiana, leader of the Moroi world, risking her life and reputation to protect generations of dhampir guardians to come.

Now that law has finally caught up with Rose--for a crime she didn't even commit. She's in prison for the highest offense imaginable: the assassination of a monarch. She'll need help from both Dimitri and Adrian to find the one living person who can stall her execution and force the Moroi elite to acknowledge a shocking new candidate for the royal throne: Vasilisa Dragomir.

But the clock on Rose's life is running out. Rose knows in her heart the world of the dead wants her back...and this time she is truly out of second chances. The big question is, when your whole life is about saving others, who will save you?

Join Rose, Dimitri, Adrian, and Lissa in Last Sacrifice, the epic, unforgettable finale to Richelle Mead's international #1 bestselling Vampire Academy series.

Review:

After the cliffhanger ending of Spirit Bound, Rose is set to stand trial for the murder of the Moroi queen Tatiana, the great-aunt of her boyfriend Adrian. However, her friends and family don't plan to let hr go on trial. They break her out with the help of some explosions and she goes on the run with her Lissa-appointed bodyguard Dimitri. Their plan is to get her somewhere safe until she can be proven innocent, but Rose has her own mission: find Lissa's illegitimate half-sibling. Meanwhile, Lissa works hard at court to clear Rose's name, find Tatiana's true killer, and maybe even become the next queen.

When I first read the book and wrote the review for it in December 2010, I was on a cloud of euphoria and not thinking very clearly. None of my favorite characters died (even if two of my favorites were given serious crap), the series had what I thought was a good ending, and it was eleven at night. I just wanted to write my review and go to bed. That was a mistake. Without a critical mind in my head, I reviewed this book, the book I anticipated more than any other in 2010. This time around, I've got my head on straight.

First comes the good parts: Lissa. each piece of the story that showed what she was doing at court and her growth as a character were amazing. From what I know, very few fans liked Lissa at the beginning and I didn't care much for her either. Now she's my favorite female character. She underwent staggering growth in six books and I'm proud of the person she's become. This girl's cutting is long behind her; now she is true royalty, a woman who can stand on her own without leaning on Rose to support her. I think she'll make an amazing queen. Too bad I won't be able to see it for myself.

The expansion into the world of the Keepers, the Moroi and such that live in caves away from civilization, was fun while it lasted. I don't see any reason why it was there other than set-up for the spin-off (because you know that's exactly what this is), but I liked it. Angeline, a dhampir girl in the Keeper world, was an interesting one and it would be a crime if she didn't appear in the spin-off. We do learn who Lissa's sibling is and anyone who figured out Mead's style will know who it is. That doesn't mean it can't still be a shock, though.

Now then, on to the bad... And there's a lot of it. First stop: Adrian. He'd had so much bull thrown at him over the course of the series and he didn't deserve any of it. Adrian was always more compelling than Dimitri, especially in the later books, because he's (figuratively) human. He has his issues and problems and his character has such life, but he's given such horrible treatment. This guy funds your trip to Siberia so you can kill the guy you love (or try and fail, more accurately) and then you repay him by cheating on him and using his credit card for things like a hotel in Las Vegas? Wow... I'm glad they broke up. Adrian deserves better than that.

What I hate worse is that he won't get over his heartbreak on his own. No, everyone and their kitchen sink knows by now that people are already making calls of "Adrian/Jill!" and "Adrian/Sydney!" and "love triangle!" because everyone knows it will happen in the spin-off. Allow me to make a statement to counter one I saw a Vampire Academy fan make once: FALLING IN LOVE IS NOT THE ONLY HAPPY ENDING. Apparently, it's not a happy ending until they're in love with someone. Conquering a massive case of heartbreak and being free to live life without that burden does not seem to count. Other Vampire Academy fans really make me angry sometimes, you know?

I really thought this would be one paranormal book where the female love rival wouldn't turn into a raging bitch. She didn't get the guy, but Tasha seemed like a true ally of Rose's and a friend who could be trusted. Tasha was my favorite female character until now (Lissa pushed her off the pedestal) and I hated to see that her character became the villain. Well, we can always try again elsewhere... I should have expected it. For Pete's sake, I'd read the fifth Georgina book a few months earlier and the same thing: love rival/friend to main character turns into a horrible person over the guy they both like.

A series-wide problem that became obvious to me in this book is how women would use a man's feelings for them to get stuff done. There were at least two instances in this book and what Rose got Adrian to do for her in previous books would account for many more. I advocate the equality of men and women. That's what being feminist is about. In this series, women are often painted as manipulative creatures that are above men and act like puppeteers. Whether real or fictional, women do not need this kind of image! Why is playing with the heart, something most can agree is an unforgivable crime, so common within these novels?

Thinking over this book again, I suddenly realized it: I hate Rose Hathaway. Adrian's speech at the end of the novel was dead-on. Over the course of the series and especially the last two books, Rose became a manipulative girl trying to pass herself off as a hero and left a lot of collateral damage behind on the way to her happy ending with Dimitri. Whatever Jill wanted to do with her life is pretty much screwed now, Eddie will be lucky to get any sort of job after what's happened, and Adrian's got one heck of a broken heart. She just brushes all of this off with "you're only a victim because you're letting yourself be one." I need help for this one:

Let it be known that I am delusional. I loved this series so much at the beginning that my poor inner child can't accept the ending as a natural one and I made up two scenarios that explain the mess it turned into. One: The news of Dimitri becoming Strigoi drove Rose insane and her mental instability accounts for her thoughts and actions from Blood Promise onward. Two: Avery's spirit magic did something to Rose's brain during that fight and everything that happened from that point onward is because of that. I liked Blood Promise, so I use the second explanation. Either way, Rose stopped acting like Rose and that's how it fell apart.

Make fun of me. Comment and tell me how pathetic I am. I don't care. All I know is that this wonderful series that I fangirled and pushed on everyone I could (even my mother!) fell apart sometime around Spirit Bound  (or Blood Promise, but I liked that book and didn't notice if it happened in there) and I will not invest my money in the spin-off or its first book Bloodlines. I read the Georgina and Dark Swan books too, but I'm not reading anymore of Mead's books after the final Georgina book comes out. I'll leave Dark Swan unfinished and look it up one day. Why keep reading when I know the series will eventually implode? It happened in Georgina, then in Vampire Academy, and it will happen again.

2 stars!

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Title: Vampire Academy
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: August 16th, 2007

Pages: 336 (paperback)

Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with an unbreakable bond to the earth's magic. She must be protected at all time from Strigoi; the fiercest and most dangerous vampires--the ones how never die.

The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a Dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making her one of them.

After two years of illicit freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. Rose will continue her Dhampir education. Lissa will go back to being Queen of the elite Moroi social scene. And both girls will resume breaking Academy hearts.

Fear made Lissa and Rose run away from St. Vladimir's--inside the Academy's iron gates, their world is even more fraught with danger. Here, the cutthroat ranks of the Moroi perform unspeakable rituals, and their secretive nature and love of the night creates an enigmatic world full of social complexities. Rose and Lissa must navigate through this dangerous world, confront the temptation of forbidden romance, and never once let their guard down, lest the Strigoi make Lissa one of them forever...

Review:

Dhampir Rose Hathaway and her best friend, Moroi vampire princess Lissa Dragomir have been on the run from their school for the past two years because something threatened Lissa and Rose, as her best friend and future guardian, had to get her away to safety. Once they're finally caught and returned to their school, the girls fall back into their lives in St. Vladimir's Academy with ease. Lissa rejoins the group of royal Moroi she'd been part of before she left; Rose takes her place among her fellow Dhampirs as one of their best (well, not anymore; she got weaker while she was away) and has to take extra classes with accomplished guardian Dimitri Belikov to catch up to her classmates. The problems that chased Lissa and Rose away in the first place return, fiercer than ever, and Rose doesn't plan to let Lissa's own Moroi powers and whoever is after her hurt her best friend.

After the last book I read, which was so awful that I couldn't even finish it and I created a vitriolic entry for it, I decided that I needed to read a good book to make myself feel better and work the rest of the rage out of my system. Vampire Academy is always a good read, so this was the book I selected and it did its job perfectly.

Out of the many vampire books/series out there for sale right now (and you know there's a lot of them), this is one of the better, more original, and overall more popular series. Instead of sticking with the traditional myth or taking the traditional myth and corrupting it beyond recognition, Vampire Academy uses vampires from Romanian folklore and enables them to perform magic. When I get bored of reading the same old stuff, I come to this series for a dose of originality.

I loved Rose because she was snarky, confident, imperfect (because she is brash, immature, and hot-headed, among other things) and and a fantastic best friend to Lissa. Even though it causes her a great deal of trouble to spirit Lissa away from St. Vladimir's, she doesn't give it a second thought because Lissa's safety is the most important thing to her. Lissa is a sweet girl who, although heavily dependant on Rose and a little ignorant of what is going on with her, will stand up for her best friend and even endanger herself while doing so because when Lissa uses her strange and mostly-unknown powers, it puts a strain on her mind and makes her exhibit strange and/or suicidal behavior. Their friendship is only strengthened by the magical bond that connects the two, allowing Rose to sense Lissa's emotions and slip into her head so that she can see what Lissa is doing. Other characters such as Dimitri and Christian (the love interests for Rose and Lissa, respectively) are just as lifelike and imperfect and I love everyone in this book- even the evil and minor characters.

Rose and Dimitri's relationship is one of my favorites out of all the books I've ever read because I feel that they get proper development. She wasn't in love with him at first sight; in fact, Rose asked in the very beginning of the book if they'd gotten cheap foreign labor (Dimitri, who comes from Siberia) to protect Lissa and act as her sanctioned guardian. As they spent time together during Rose's extra classes with him and even go on a trip outside the school with Lissa and a few other Moroi, I could see the two becoming close and developing feelings for one another. Their relationship is a forbidden one, but not the bad type; they both suffer genuinely and try to move on, but can't. Just when you think it might work out after all, something comes along and breaks your heart.

One of the antagonists has some decent development, but the other two... not so much. Mia, the childlike Moroi who has something against Rose and Lissa, is a rather two-dimensional minor antagonist. In later books, she gets some great development and by the fifth book, she is one of my favorite characters. Then the Strigoi, who will become the great baddies in the next book and all after, are very distant, looming threats until the last few pages of the book. For the antagonist that does get some development, I felt that they had the right reasons, but went about it all wrong.

There are a lot of deeper issues in this book too, such as how the Moroi depend so heavily on the Dhampirs to protect them from Strigoi. Due to Strigoi attacks, Dhampirs are lost in pretty good numbers and as a result, there is more pressure for more Dhampirs to become guardians and protect the Moroi, the people who made them. The Moroi could protect themselves by using their magic offensively, but they see that as taboo and only use magic defensively. The Moroi are forever above the Dhampirs, the latter are forever the servants. It's not very obvious, but if you pay attention, you can tell that in the future, there will be a little shakeup in the status quo.

There's also the matter of "blood whores," people (of any race, mind you) who allow themselves to be bitten by Moroi so that they can feel the endorphin rush that comes with the bite. Roe struggles with her wish to be bitten because for the two years she and Lissa were gone, she acted as Lissa's feeder so that Lissa wouldn't have to bite random humans. The only way to be more taboo is to allow oneself to be bitten during sex. This issue will stick with Rose for most of the series and it's not going to go away easily. It's a refreshing break from the hypersexual vampire novels, isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, this series is one of my favorites, but this is not my favorite book of the series. That is a tie between Frostbite and Shadow Kiss. At times, it felt like a typical teen novel with vampires and I didn't find it funny when someone used their sexuality to get their way. Despite this, I love the Vampire Academy series and recommend them to all who would be willing to charge through this first book and get to the good ones. (Beware when you get to Spirit Bound, though. Rose gets pretty out-of-character, which makes that tie with this book as the weakest entry.)

4 stars!