Review: Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead + St. Vladimir's Summer School

From TheFakeSteph

It's Week 5 of St. Vladimir's Summer School, a.k.a Spirit Bound week, and I am definitely in some serious detention because this post is very, very late! Sorry for the delay and general lack of posts; I've been traveling and internet access and reading time have been limited. I'm excited to get back on track and catch up with all the great posts and reviews I've missed!

St. Vladimir's Summer School is a Vampire Academy read-a-thon started by Steph @ The Fake Steph, Jen @ Jen Ryland/YA Romantics and Jenn @ Owl-Read-It! Be sure to check out their posts. Thanks for letting me join in, and thanks to Grad Student at YA Fiction & Whiskey Sours for bringing this to my attention.

***MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD*** 

Goodreads | Amazon

I've been vacillating between 3 and 4 stars for Spirit Bound. Strictly speaking, I enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed the others - this series is totally the book equivalent of an episode of Buffy: fast-paced, entertaining and featuring a tough, snarky heroine. 

Yet something about Spirit Bound just rubbed me the wrong way. Book 5 begins just as we expect it to - Rose is continuing her quest to free Dimitri and return him to his dhampir form - but it's her newfound relationship with Adrian that I found a bit frustrating. 

Her obsession with saving Dimitri, while understandable, is pretty awkward given the fact that she's agreed to be with Adrian, and this isn't really addressed until the final chapters of the book. While I didn't mind the dilemma itself, the way Rose handled it - or rather, didn't handle it - got a little annoying. The few times she stops to consider Adrian's feelings, she manages to convince herself that she'll somehow be able to keep their relationship alive if Dimitri were to return, when really - who is she kidding? Adrian didn't stand a chance. This wasn't a huge deal for me, and I can see how it fits with Rose's reckless, teenage side, but it did come across as the easy way out to have her be so naïve, and it made her just a tad annoying. 

Having said that, Spirit Bound was just as entertaining as the first four books in the series, and I love that Mead brings back a lot of the secondary characters from the previous books and continues to flesh them out. Rose and the gang have all graduated, and I could definitely feel Mead upping the intensity. The battles are more dangerous and wide-spread, and the petty high school pranks and rivalries of the first few books have given way to political court drama. We get a lot of insight into Moroi court life and its conventions, and get to see the sensitive political dynamics between the royal families. 

Overall, the Vampire Academy series is one of the few I've read that has been consistently entertaining while developing the world and characters, and I can't believe there's only one more book! I'm already halfway through Last Sacrifice because the Spirit Bound cliffhanger was awful, so here's hoping it's a great ending to the series! 

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And because this is Summer School, I'm following Steph's lead and imparting some of the lessons I've learned (all in good fun, because I do love VA):

What I learned: Never think that a tiny face mask is enough to hide you at a masked ball, because it NEVER IS.

What I also learned: Stabbing through a cushion is about the same as stabbing through a vampire's chest.

That's it from me this week! Let me know if you have any ideas for detention, because I am unforgivably late! Will try to do something special next week to make up for it, especially since it's the last book.

What have you learned from Vampire Academy? Would love to hear!