bookclub: Vampire academy 1

people who know me personally will say: another vampire serie? Yes indeed another one.
After the succes of twilight and the vampire diaries  vampire academy is another serie to steal any one's heart. Oh and it's written by Richelle Mead!

To be honest, this serie of books is the most original in my eyes  even though I'm 22 (yes I know) this teenage vamp thing really is enjoyable!

As I am going to review the whole serie in parts this review will contain spoilers, I try to avoid and conceal as much crucial info as possible and please don't let my opinion hold you back. reading is valuable to anyones development. Even reading about vampires.

Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with an unbreakable bond to the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest and most dangerous vampires--the ones who 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 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...


Written for the Young Adult market, Vampire Academy has a boarding school setting but this is not any ordinary school - it is St Vladimir’s Vampire Academy.  St Vladimir’s Academy teaches young Moroi vampires magic and young Dhampirs combat skills and their responsibilities to guard their Moroi kind
.
A boarding school that teaches magic classes may sound a lot like Hogwarts from the Harry Potter novels but there really is no comparison.  At Hogwarts Harry Potter and friends learn about magic, eat giant feasts prepared by house-elves and generally have a strange innocence that manages to transcend their being teenagers.

By contrast, at St Vladimir’s Academy learning about magic comes a poor second to boyfriends, girlfriends, gossip about who is doing the nasty with who, drinking and parties.  Somehow I feel that Lissa and Rose are probably the more accurate portrayal of older teenagers at a mixed-gender boarding school…

Aside from the constant social intrigues that the girls must navigate, Lissa seems to be the target of some nasty “pranks” that involve dead or dying animals.  The dead animals could just be someone’s idea of a joke but the nature of the “pranks” suggests that somebody at the Academy knows Lissa’s darkest secret.

Vampire Academy is an engrossing tale.  Packed full of excitement and intrigue this book should have no problems keeping its teenage audience entertained.  It probably has just enough romance to entertain plenty of adults too

Bookclub: casual vacancy

J.K. Rowling came back into publicity with her first adult novel. This review is a review on the book which doesn't contains any spoilers with info about the story or it's characters.
It's based on my personal opinion after reading this book, please never let me stop you from reading it!

Casual vacancy contains adult topics like drugs, sex, self harm, rape,  and there is a lot ...really a lot of swearing. Things youngsters seldom read about or should read about. The topics and vocabullary used sure is a huge step away from the wizard we see before us as soon as we hear the author' name.

This is a traditional, somewhat retro English novel. Set in the "pretty little town of Pagford", in the West Country, it is a study of provincial life, with a large cast and multiple interlocking plots.As I do am a fan of multiple storylines this at first side was a good thing, but as the story continues the storylines switch so often and quickly it can be very confussing! within a sentence the view changes to another character's vision on the situation.

There are similarities found in the casual vacancy and the harry potter books which I loved. Even as this is a adult novel it focusses on teenagers and their struggles. 

This new book is a missed change for Rowling. The story is promissing and some plots really are very creative, but it is hard to read or follow unless you really take a lot of time to re-read things once every while. The end is sudden, predictable and a shame. Really not the ending that fits the story, to me it seems an open ending, but I doubt there is enough to write another book.