Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Best friends Lissa and Rose are in hiding, escapees of St. Vladimir Academy, a boarding school for Moroi vampires and their possible Dhampir guardians in training. When the girls get caught and brought back to the school all they want is to plan an escape again. We don’t find out until later in the book exactly why they ran away in the first place, but when we do, the story gets even more complex.

Since they’ve been in hiding Rose has been looking out for Lissa on her own, keeping a guard out for the Strigoi- vampires turned evil by other Strigoi- but at the academy Lissa’s real guardian until Rose graduates is Dimitri. He’s a Russian Dhampir and amazingly gorgeous, not to mention Roses new tutor in all things guardian since she’s gotten behind in training because of her absence.

She knows all too well that teacher student relations are so not allowed, but working out with Dimitri, even though he can be harsh and sometimes infuriating, is totally working out for Rose.

But Lissa’s been depressed, and has been hurting herself over weird abilities neither Rose nor herself can fully understand. Lissa can heal things, animals, plants, people… but since animals have been turning up dead around her and, animal lover that she is, Lissa can’t help but try to heal them, which makes her physically weak and depressed. Every time she uses her powers her symptoms get worse. Rose makes it her mission to help Lissa, looking for any sort of information she can, but she ends up learning more then she had bargained for, finding similarities between Lissa’s condition and that of St. Vladamire the founder of the school and a crazy old teacher, Mrs. Karp.

Rose wants so badly to help her friend, but will she be able to save Lissa from her own powers? From herself?

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OK, so, I was hesitant about it at first, mostly because this is not my favorite book cover in the world of books, BUT Vampire Academy ended up being a really great read! The characters were fun and I liked following them around the academy, getting themselves into trouble and such. It was a little hard, because while I did like Rose right away (Mostly i think it's the first person thing for me, because it's as if that person is being totally open with me about their innermost thoughts and that makes me trust them more which makes me like them for doing that. (Just characters, I know.... *sigh*) and I definitely admire her fieryness's (wish i could pull that off) she did sort of worry me a little at first XD cause I really wanted to like her but I still wasn't pulle dinto her fan club yet... But she really grew on me and now that I'm reading the 3rd book and she's changed a lot as a person I really like her! lol

Then Dimitri's charicter is... *coughcoughz* Niiiiccceee....and I <3 Christian too! >.<

Anyways, it's cool cause this was a really different take on the whole vampire thing that has been so well done in the YA book world, and I really enjoyed it. :) Five flowers! (*giggle* SUCH a girl...X_x)