Tuesday 7 December 2010

Frost Bite (VA #2) - Richelle Mead

Frost Bite is the second book in the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. It was published on 1st October 2009 by Puffin and is 336 pages long. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy for review.

Plot
After a massive Strigoi attack on the Moroi royal families, St Vladimir’s Academy is put on high alert, taking in help from notorious guardians like Janine Hathaway, Rose’s mother. The Strigoi attacks force St Vladimir’s to rethink the safety of their students and decide to make this years ski trip mandatory.

The bond Rose shares with Moroi princess best friend, Lissa, causes her to be able to see Lissa and Christian making out. A lot. Also, Rose has a huge crush on her instructor, Dimitri but one of her other best friends, Mason, has a huge crush on her. While at the ski lodge, another guy takes a keen interest in Rose. Adrian is Moroi royalty and isn’t used to not getting what he wants but is determined to do what it takes to get Rose to notice him. With all of this going on, the Strigoi attacks are just one more thing for Rose to deal with.

When a trio of students decide to take things into their own hands, Rose must join forces with Christian to stop them making a massive mistake only the mistake might actually be going after them. Both Rose’s life and heart are at risk but she sees no way to save both.

What I thought
Even though I thought that Vampire Academy was a little slow going for a while, by the time I reached the end of the book, I couldn’t wait for the second one, Frost Bite. I was so happy when books 2-5 came through the door because it meant that I could have a bit of a VA marathon.

Although I wouldn’t recommend starting with the second book in this series, Richelle Mead recaps what has happened at the beginning and throughout this book. I quite liked this aspect to begin with, thinking it was especially good if it had been a while since you had read the previous book. However, l felt as though some of the recaps went on a little too far in the main story and there were too many of them sometimes. The time could probably have been used better.

One of the things that I loved most about this book was being able to see how much Rose changed due to everything that she had to go through. As her feelings for Dimitri grow, she realises that he may be the one thing that she wont be able to have and that causes her to rethink things a bit. As well as having to deal with her feelings for Dimitri, she has to come to terms with the fact that he may not be her instructor for much longer and what impact this could have on her becoming a guardian and what will happen as soon as she graduates. I really liked the way that Rose’s guardian training came in to play a lot in Frost Bite because it really made me realise how much she has gone through to get to where she is now, after leaving the Academy for a while.

Having Rose’s mother in this book made it possible to see a completely different side to Rose. It had been made known before that her mother had never really been around for her and was quite quick to get on with her own career once Rose was born. In Frost Bite, many of Rose’s feelings that she had previously kept hidden begin to surface and this leads the way for some quite heated conversations between the two. I enjoyed these parts of the book because it meant that I got to see a different side to Rose, one where she wasn’t the girl who didn’t let anything bother her.

I was kind of glad to see that Lissa wasn’t a main feature of this book. I don’t totally dislike her but I was glad to see Rose on her own for a while and interacting with other people. It really wouldn’t be healthy for her to only have Lissa as a friend so I liked seeing her friendship with Mason grow, even if there were ulterior motives on his part. Some other characters that we get to see more of this time around are Christian and Mia. Another new addition to this book was Adrian, another royal Moroi. From his very first moment on the page, I loved him. He is so full of himself and sure of what he wants/ what he’s going to get but he also had a certain charm about him that I couldn’t resist. Adrian took an instant shine to Rose and I cant help but kind of want them to end up together. Their personalities would definitely make for an interesting relationship and I really hope that because of this, Adrian sticks around throughout the series.

I haven’t read a book that made me cry for quite a long time now but Richelle Mead has broken that now. There were a couple of times in throughout that I could feel myself welling up but I didn’t think I was actually going to cry, until I broke down and had a really good sob at one part in particular. Along with a fantastic ending, Frost Bite is an emotional ride that made me question what I thought about certain characters. I couldn’t pick up the third book in this series fast enough after putting this one down.

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