Review - Vampire Academy: Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead

Dimitri gave Rose the ultimate choice. But she chose wrong...

After a long and heartbreaking journey to Dimitri's birthplace in Siberia, Rose Hathaway has finally returned to St. Vladimir's-and to her best friend, Lissa. It is nearly graduation, and the girls can't wait for their real lives beyond the Academy's iron gates to begin. But Rose's heart still aches for Dimitri, and she knows he's out there, somewhere.

She failed to kill him when she had the chance. And now her worst fears are about to come true. Dimitri has tasted her blood, and now he is hunting her. And this time he won't rest until Rose joins him... forever.

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This is the fifth book in Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series, and now Rose has finally become a fully-fledged guardian. However, she worries that she won’t be assigned to Lissa, her best friend, because of her past misdemeanours – but finding out that there is a possible way to save Dimitri leads her to make a dangerous decision. She and her friends are forced to break a dangerous criminal out of jail in order to gain information on how to save a Strigoi, and her actions may have repercussions that even she can’t predict. Meanwhile, Dimitri will do anything to win her over to his side and turn her to Strigoi, and saving him seems impossible.

This is probably my all-time favourite vampire series (with the possible exception on Julie Kagawa’s Blood of Eden series), and the world of the Moroi and dhampirs is complex and interesting. I particularly enjoyed the ongoing debates about whether certain laws – for instance, that all dhampirs train to guard the Moroi, some of whom are capable and willing to learn to defend themselves – ought to be changed.

The book is another action-packed rollercoaster; although it does start off slowly, it’s totally gripping from the halfway point onwards, with twists I definitely didn’t see coming! Rose is as engaging as ever, although I did think it’s a bit unfair of her to string Adrian along the way she does, when it’s plain she still has feelings for Dimitri. That said, the story is extremely gripping and the stakes are sky-high (no pun intended!). With such a killer cliffhanger of an ending, I’m going to have to read the last book!

Rating: ****