Friday, 10 December 2010

Spirit Bound (VA #5) - Richelle Mead

Spirit Bound is the fifth book in the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. It was published on 26th May 2009 by Puffin and is 336 pages long. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy for review.

Plot
After Rose Hathaway’s adventure to Siberia, she has finally made it back to what should be the safety of St Vladimir’s Academy and best friend, Lissa Dragomir. Graduation time is fast approaching and even though Rose is unsure of whether or not she can actually finish school, she is looking forward to life in the real world. Before she can even begin to think of what she will do next, there is one massive thing that she must deal with. Dimitri.

After finally tracking down Dimitri and being given a choice, Rose now has to face the fact that he is far from dead and now stalking her, with the promise of finishing off what he started. What Rose learnt while being in Siberia could help her a lot but the choice she has to make first is whether or not true love is worth the risk? What is Rose willing to risk in order to be with Dimitri again?

What I thought
Rose grows more and more throughout each book in this series and in Spirit Bound, she did so even more. Not only does Rose have a lot to go through physically, she also has to deal with a lot emotionally. Probably more than she has ever has in the past and that is saying a lot, considering what she has been through already. She is still the kick ass girl that I loved to begin with but she also isn’t afraid to put herself out there for the people she loves. I really enjoyed watching Rose decide how she was going to approach her problems and what she thought were the right solutions. I didn’t always agree with her choices but I could certainly see why she did some of the things that she did.

My opinion of Lissa has completely changed after reading this book. I really thought that she was quite selfish before and being as she is a Princess, I guess some could say that she is entitled to act that way. I’ve always thought that she put herself before Rose all of the time and never really did anything to prove to me how much of a friend she really was. However, Lissa really proved herself as a best friend and showed just how much she was prepared to do in order to look after Rose and to help her be happy.

I really liked Adrian as soon as he made his first appearance in the series but I grew to love him so much more in this book. He has grown so much and maybe a big part of that was Rose leaving to go to Siberia, leaving him to think about what he really wants. I did kind of love his cockiness before but I was also glad to see that being tamed down a little bit and to now see a softer side to him.

Who could resist Dimitri? He was once a strong, powerful guardian and is now an even stronger, meaner Strigoi. Everyone who regularly reads my reviews will know just how much I love a bad boy so the moment I found out he had turned Strigoi, my heart kind of skipped a couple of beats. I instantly had ideas about how bad he was going to get and I wasn’t wrong. Maybe that is why I loved Blood Promise so much. Although he doesn’t feature too much in this book, a large amount of the story revolves around him. I’m still unsure if I liked the way that things turned out but I am looking forward to finding out what happens to him next.

I LOVED the cliff-hanger at the end. Although it probably wasn’t the best of the series, it was still shocking enough to make me want the next book immediately. Luckily, I didn’t have too long to wait before I got it, unlike a lot of people who would have read this book months ago. There were so many questions that I wanted the answers to and I wanted to know what was going to happen to all of the characters, not just Rose. Normally in a series, I don’t really care that much about everyone but as well as Rose and Dimitri; Lissa, Adrian and Christian have a lot going on and a lot that could happen to them and I wanted to know their stories just as much as Rose’s.

Spirit Bound was not my favourite book in the series but I did really like where the story was going, in the lead up to the final book in the series. Richelle Mead has set the scene perfectly for Last Sacrifice but in doing so, some of the fast paced scenes that I liked so much from the previous books were missing. I felt like some parts were rushed and towards the end of the book, the story slowed down massively. Even with this happening, I still enjoyed the story, just not as much as others in the series.

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