Quickie Reviews: Vampire Academy and Frostbite by Richelle Mead

Publication Date: August 16th, 2007
Finished Date: May 19th, 2012
Publisher: Razorbill
Format: Paperback
Pages: 332
Series: Vampire Academy #1
My Rating: 3/5

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Blurb from Goodreads:
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 Review

Not bad! There was plenty of obstacles and trials for our two heroines, both in the form of mortal peril and high-school drama. However, one thing that derailed me from giving VA a higher rating is the heroine's, Rose's, for lack of a better word, bitchy attitude! She flirts and makes out with guys just for the fun of it, and she's too into revenges for her own good. But she did mature as the story progressed, and what she did for her friends, Lissa and Christian, at the end was really respectable.

Strangely addictive and exciting, though a little cliched! It has a certain similarity to Half-blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout, or rather, Half-blood has a certain similarity to Vampire Academy. The same running away and after that being hunted down and brought back to a school by a hot love interest, then being forced to be trained by said love interest because of how much schooling and training having missed and then having a final epic showdown.

My Rating

Publication Date: April 10th 2008
Finished Date: May 20th, 2012
Publisher: Razorbill
Format: Paperback
Pages: 327
Series: Vampire Academy #2
My Rating: 3.5/5

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Blurb from Goodreads: Rose loves Dimitri, Dimitri might love Tasha, and Mason would die to be with Rose...

It’s winter break at St. Vladimir’s, but Rose is feeling anything but festive. A massive Strigoi attack has put the school on high alert, and now the Academy’s crawling with Guardians—including Rose’s hard-hitting mother, Janine Hathaway. And if hand-to-hand combat with her mom wasn’t bad enough, Rose’s tutor Dimitri has his eye on someone else, her friend Mason’s got a huge crush on her, and Rose keeps getting stuck in Lissa’s head while she’s making out with her boyfriend, Christian! The Strigoi are closing in, and the Academy’s not taking any risks... This year, St. Vlad’s annual holiday ski trip is mandatory.

But the glittering winter landscape and the posh Idaho resort only create the illusion of safety. When three friends run away in an offensive move against the deadly Strigoi, Rose must join forces with Christian to rescue them. But heroism rarely comes without a price...

My Review

Frostbite didn't fail to deliver! Vampire Academy was quite a good start to a series, and Frostbite had the same amount of danger and action that VA had, more intense emotions, heartbreaks and heartaches, more secondary characters and love rivals and interests come into play! I won't peg this as one of my favourite series, but there's just this something that makes it so addictive. I'm literally gobbling this series up one book per day! Which is seriously jeopardizing my exams tomorrow, but that's just it! It's too, goddamned addictive. (Sorry for the language.)

Might be Dmitri, might be the new hot guy in town, Adrian, might be how Rose knows how to kick some serious ass, might be how Rose's mom is THE coolest female dhamphir guardian in this era and she's now in the picture, might be...... As you can see, this book is packed with SO MANY awesome factors, so yes, it was a thrilling and gripping novel. In this cliched, vampire-novel kind of way. You might think this is a good thing, or bad, depends on how you see it. But now, there's no time to lose; I'm off to reading the next book, Shadow Kiss! ;)

P.S. For those who read my reviews regularly, I'm not going to be writing any full length reviews for quite some time cause Junior College life in Singapore is hardcore to the max. No time to do anything but MUG. Means studying and cramming over here, by the way.

My Rating

      

Review: Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright

Published Date: January 28th 2012
Finished Date: March 1st, 2012
Publisher: Dragonfairy Press
Format: eBook for Tour
Series: Habitat #1
My Rating: 4/5

Blurb from Goodreads:
Since the 1970s humans have forced supernaturals to live in caged cities. Silver brands embedded in their foreheads identify them by species: a full moon for Vampires, a crescent moon for Shifters, a pair of wings for Fairies, and the list goes on, for each supernatural species has been tagged and categorized by humans.

Lanore Vesta is marked with a silver X, the brand of Mixbreeds, second-class citizens shunned by society. She stays to herself, revealing her ability to create fire only during emergencies. All she wants to do is graduate college and stop having to steal to survive. But when she stumbles upon a murder in progress, she catches the attention of a supernatural killer. Now all she wants is to stop finding dead bodies in her apartment.

Enlisting help from her Were-cheetah ex-boyfriend MeShack and a new mysterious friend named Zulu, she is steered through the habitat’s raunchy nightlife. But their presence sometimes proves to be more burden than help, as they fight for her attention.

While the corpses pile up, and the scent of blood fills the air, Lanore is left wondering: will she find the psycho or die trying?

My Review

FIRE BAPTIZED was an unexpectedly captivating novel! I haven't been enjoying the books that are provided for the blog tours that I've signed up for for the past few months, so I wasn't expecting much from FB initially and was even a little prejudiced toward it at the start, somehow convincing myself at page 2 that I will not like the book. But imagine my shock when, as I continued flipping its pages, the flippin' got faster and faster, and I just had to finish it in one sitting (I did it in two, actually, because I still need my beauty sleeps at night:P).

My Summary

Lanore Simone Vesta is a Mixie, a mixbreed with both Fairy and Demon blood within her, who can create and manipulate fire with any part of her body. She lives with a childhood friend and past lover, MeShack. He happens to also be a Were-leopard. A really protective, possessive, and ultra hot one.

Lanore is part of the Mixbreeds For Equality (MFE), a revolutionary group that aims to fight for the rights of Mixies who are looked down upon by both the Humans and Supernaturals (Supes) which is headed by Zulu, Lanore's current lover and an alpha-male Mixie who has the connections and wealth.

The Supernaturals and Mixbreeds live in the Habitat, where there is a boundary that they cannot cross. It's not a bad world, with proper schools, universities, clubs and such, but when Lanore stumbles upon a live murder scene one day, she becomes a target of a serial killer with a fetish for draping the crime scene with the victim's decorated body parts. But what if the serial killer isn't just dismembering random passers-by? What if, there was a pattern and a purpose to all these killings?

Not only must Lanore solve these issues and handle MFE matters, she must also deal with the emotional confusion that is Zulu and MeShack, two very hot-headed and sexy half-Shifters...

My Thoughts

I was honestly hooked to FB while I was reading it, and felt so sorry when the epilogue came up. I even chanced reading it in class! There was that steamy hot love triangle that I was seriously not expecting, and a complicated murder case that was mind-blowing. The suspense was intense, and the plot scared me a little for awhile, and I LOVED it.

Lanore's a very cool heroine. She's just the right amount of kickass and feminine; She sticks up for herself, fights her own battles, but when things got real bad and horrific, she did lose it for awhile, and had to be taken care of by the boys, but that all just made her seem all the more real and....well, cool! MeShack and Zulu too. I thought that their names were so odd when I first read about them, but it didn't matter anymore as I got to know them. They. Were. HOT. Haha, and so protective, possessive, romantic, cheeky, hot-tempered, testosterone-y, and sexy.

I liked Kenya's writing style too - the plot flowed smoothly and the scenes were illustrated vividly. The murder scenes were portrayed in all their gory detail which did gross me out quite badly, and it truly seemed like a horror story at one point. But that just goes to show how truly well FB was planned and written. Lanore was becoming obsessed with finding the murderer as it was becoming clear that she was going to be one of the next victims, and I was as confused as she was while she was still trying to solve the case. But when the big revelation came, you would go, "Why didn't I make the connection?!" It was so shocking, and I couldn't, for the life of me, have guessed who the bigass mastermind was! That part was fantastically well done.

I'd recommend FIRE BAPTIZED to fans of Paranormal Romance and Mystery/Thrillers. I'm so glad I took this tour up, and I'm anxiously awaiting for book 2, THE BURNING BUSH.

My Rating