Bookworm Blurbs

Rose Hathaway's got serious guy trouble.  Her gorgeous tutor Dimitri has his eye on someone else, her friend Mason has a huge crush on her, and she keeps getting stuck in her best friend Lissa's head while she's making out with her boyfriend, Christian.  (So not cool).

Then a massive Strigoi attack puts St. Vladimir's on high alert, and the Academy crawls with Guardians--including the legendary Janine Hathaway...Rose's formidable, long-absent mother.  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 provide the illusion of safety.  When three students run away to strike back against the deadly Strigoi, Rose must join forces with Christian to rescue them.  Only this time, Rose--and her heart--are in more danger than she ever could have imagined... (source)

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Vampire Academy, so as soon as I got a chance, I picked up Frostbite, which is next in the series, from the library. And then I proceeded to read it in a day because I seriously could not put it down! Although this is definitely not a particularly sophisticated series, it is the perfect distraction from life for a bit. 

Like Vampire Academy, Frostbite definitely has its flaws. Mead is not a particularly advanced writer. For starters, she begins Frostbite with a totally unnecessary recap of everything that happened in Vampire Academy - I loved that book, but that was almost enough to make me skeptical about reading this one. Mead's writing style lacks zest and it feels as though her book were written by a seventeen year old - but this is acceptable because it's told through the perspective of a seventeen year old. I picked up on a few grammatical errors. Also, when the narrator, Rose, has conversations with people, she'll often drift off and have her own little mental commentary on whatever they're saying. There were a few instances when Rose would give kind of random responses to people because Mead apparently forgot what the person had last said. This should have been picked up on by an editor and I think that if the story itself had not been so delectable, I would have been a lot more picky about such errors. 

Fortunately for Mead, Rose's story really is addicting. There's so much drama in Rose's life and it resumed with fervor in Frostbite. In this story, she's still got pretty intense feelings for her mentor, Dimitri, who is old enough that their romance would be pretty inappropriate - and that's actually the smallest stumbling block in their relationship. Unfortunately for Rose, Dimitri seems to have developed feelings for someone else, and in response, Rose decides to give one of her friends a shot. He's had feelings for her for quite some time and is perfect in basically every way - except he's not Dimitri. So that little love triangle was interesting to read about. And then there was the drama with Rose's mother - they have a less than civil relationship. On top of all of Rose's personal drama, the dreaded Strigoi have become a greater threat as they've teamed up with a few humans to attack unsuspecting Moroi - and of course, Rose gets involved with this. With all of this material, each chapter was filled with action, all narrated in Rose's snarky voice. 

The Vampire Academy is most definitely a guilty pleasure read - it's basically like Gossip Girl and Twilight mixed together. If that's the kind of book you're looking for, I think you'd love this series, but definitely read Vampire Academy before Frostbite, because this is a series that needs to be read sequentially. And now, I'm off to my library's website to request book #3!