Bloodlines review

Bloodlines
Richelle Mead
August 23rd 2011
Razorbill

Blood doesn't lie...

Sydney is an alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of human and vampires. They protect vampire secrets - and human lives. When Sydney is torn from her bed in the middle of the night, at first she thinks she's still being punished for her complicated alliance with dhampir Rose Hathaway. But what unfolds is far worse. Jill Dragomir - the sister of Moroi Queen Lissa Dragomir - is in mortal danger, and the Moroi must send her into hiding. To avoid a civil war, Sydney is called upon to act as Jill's guardian and protector, posing as her roommate in the last place anyone would think to look for vampire royalty - a human boarding school in Palm Springs, California. But instead of finding safety at Amberwood Prep, Sydney discovers the drama is only just beginning...

This review is going to be weird to write because I've already read The Golden Lily, but I'm going to try and review them both separately anyway. I've been binge reading a lot of series lately. But yeah, Bloodlines was kind of weird for me because I first tried to read it ages ago when I first got it, probably around the time that I'd just finished Vampire Academy, and I just couldn't get into it. So I put it aside and I hadn't picked it up until last week, when  I read it in like a day. As a reviewer (of sorts), I feel bad about not reading books that I get sent before they come out so that I can have a review up on time, but I think that sometimes it does work out for the best. Now was the right time for me to get into this series.

I really loved being in the Vampire Academy world again and getting to spend time with some of my favourite characters from the series. I came to like Sydney and Jill a lot in VA, and Adrian of course, so it was nice to get to read a series which is about them properly. I was surprised by how much I liked Sydney as a narrator because she's so different from Rose, but I liked the fact that the tone of the story as well as the narrator was so different from Vampire Academy. It would feel a bit lazy if it was just Vampire Academy: California, you know? And I still really love Jill and Adrian, and the new aspect to their relationship that I was not expecting. I'm hoping it will have more of a purpose in the next few books, but it's still pretty cool. Also, Eddie Castile is adorable and I love him too. I don't really remember much about him from VA, but I'm glad that he's such a key character in this series.

One of the things which I probably liked most about Sydney's character development was her Alchemist background and her relationship with what she'd been taught and her actual experiences. Which is weird for me because usually I get a bit iffy about Religion in books, but when it's that integral to a character and their understanding of the world, it's kind of unavoidable and really helps to understand where Sydney is coming from. Unlike in VA, there's much less physical conflict that there is other kinds of conflict, and some of the best things in the book come from Sydney's conflict with her beliefs and her heart.

That being said, though there definitely isn't as much action as in VA (which I might have already said... I read the book a while ago so I'm scraping the barrel a bit here), it is still fast-paced and  builds up to an exciting ending. I did think that it was quite predictable, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment as even though I kind of figured out who the killer was, I really didn't want it to be them. And I liked the magic aspect of Bloodlines, too. I was familiar with the concept of Vampire magic and all that, but I liked seeing how humans had sort of made their own to do magic, and Sydney's vehement refusal to use it despite having a talent for it. I think that there's a lot more where that is coming from, given that one the books is called The Indigo Spell, and I am looking forward to getting to see all of that and Sydney's conflict with the practicality of magic in the environment that she's in and her religious Alchemist upbringing.

Overall, I really enjoyed Bloodlines and I am definitely looking forward to seeing how the rest of the series shapes up. I've already read The Golden Lily and should have a review of that up fairly soon, but I've heard that the series does get even better. Definitely for fans of Vampire Academy looking for more Richelle Mead greatness.