[COMING SOON TO THE BIG SCREEN] Vampire Academy Trailer Update

I'm not really sure whether to treat this as a comedy...or an action movie... or a drama...just really confused.

Also I'm not a big fan of Lissa's voice or the acting in general, not what I pictured.

After watching this trailer my interest in this wanes.

What are your thoughts? Yay or Nay? Comment below!

[COMING SOON TO THE BIG SCREEN] Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters

Well I was surprised that there were, not only talks, but finalized plans to produce a movie based upon the Vampire Academy novel by Richelle Mead. I'm assuming they're planning to produce all the films but I'm not sure exactly how many to be honest.  The film is titled: "Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters", I guess to play off the whole soul connection between Rose and Lissa.

I took a look at the casting and I'm happy to say that I'm somewhat content with it. Much more so then any other film so far (ahem Mortal Instruments, I mean you specifically).

The cast for the main characters is:









Zoey Deutch as Rose Hathaway.

















Lucy Fry as Lissa Dragomir.


















Danila Kozlovsky as Dimitri Belikov.













The Vampire Academy is one of my favourite series (minus that, in my opinion, atrocious ending). I like Rose's strong will and personality so hopefully the actress can portray it - well.

The movie is scheduled for worldwide release February 14, 2014. Looks like the Maze Runner has some competition. Also I'm still confused as to why there are so many of these NOT rom coms or love stories coming out on valentine's day. Is the general norm now to cater to the singles of the world? In that case they're probably betting we'll drown our single life sorrows while watching some high intense action movie about vampires and/or about boys lost in this maze...seems like a good plan to me. I'll see all my single lovelies there! (I'll be the one with sour patch kids)

xoxox ♥

[REVIEW] Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

Published: August 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Age Group: Young Adult
Series: Bloodlines #1

When alchemist Sydney is ordered into hiding to protect the life of Moroi princess Jill Dragomir, the last place she expects to be sent is a human private school in Palm Springs, California. But at their new school, the drama is only just beginning.

Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, Bloodlines explores all the friendship, romance, battles and betrayals that made the #1 New York Times bestselling Vampire Academy series so addictive - this time in a part-vampire, part-human setting where the stakes are even higher and everyone's out for blood. (From Goodreads)

I've put off reading this book for a long time now. Not because the end of the Vampire Academy Series was horrible (cause it was, [review]) but because when I heard that the premise of the spin off series was that it would be following secondary characters, well I wasn't really interested. Frankly, I'm still not that interested...more than I was before though.

For readers who loved the Vampire Academy series, I will say that Richelle Mead's new series is different.  The writing is the same but the setting changes.  In Vamprie Academy, there is a lot of action and drama (mainly the love triangle and vampire politics), well in Bloodlines, the story has more of a mystery feeling mixed with teenage problems (school and social drama). There's a lot less action which was one of the main things I loved in the original series. Okay, now enough hating, I did like some parts of this book.

First, Sydney. She's a very interesting character. Well she had better be if she's expected to be the main character. I find a lot of similarities with her and Rose Hathaway from Vampire Academy but Sydney has enough of a personality that I can read the story and still distinguish the two.

Second: I know I just ranted about the lack of action in Bloodlines but I must say, I do enjoy the school drama that is in this book. I was missing some good old teenage angst with all the books I've been reading so that was a good different.

Okay, now back to some more dislikes.
Adrian. Before you kill me let me explain. Adrian Ivashkov is sort of a scene stealer charactet in the original series. And I must admit that I did like him but purpose was just to be that third part of the love triangle between Rose, Dimitri and him. Honestly, I find that Richelle Mead only put him in this series because there were so many heartbroken female readers that DEMANDED he get justice for his sadness in the previous books. That's probably the only reason why he's in this book. Because there's a fan base behind him and people want to read more about him. What do I have to say about this? Meh. I don't really care, just that I've noticed that it seemed slightly forced with Adrian in the story.  It did get better later on but at the beginning, I kept reading thinking "Why is Adrian here?"

Also it seems evident that there's going to be some romantic relationship between Adrian and Sydney...I DON'T LIKE THAT. I don't know why...it just bothers me.  Maybe I'm too much of a Vampire Academy lover that I can't picture Adrian without Rose (or in this case with anyone else.)

Lastly, Richelle Mead has a way of bringing in characters from her first book to entice readers a little bit. Some of them work, others not so much. When Rose is there at the start, it seemed unnecessary. She had a couple of lines and a quick hug and that was it. Waste of a character and lines to be honest.  But another time Richelle Mead did this was at the end.

SPOILERS That last line. "Dimitri Belikov had arrived" spoke thousands. I LOVE  Dimitri and am so excited he's in the next book in the series, The Golden Lily. That's the only reason that's motivating me to read the next book. Dimitri. END SPOLERS

MEH

[REVIEW] Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead

Published: December 2010
     Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)       
Age Group: Young Adult
Series: Vampire Academy #6 [end]

The astonishing final novel in Richelle Mead's epic series!
 
Murder. Love. Jealousy. And the ultimate sacrifice. Now, with Rose on trial for her life and Lissa first in line for the Royal Throne, nothing will ever be the same between them. (From Goodreads)

First of all, if you like to read about vampires and you haven't heard of the Vampire Academy series, then you're definitely missing out. 

The Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead follows mainly Rose Hathway and her trials as a guardian and dhampir. A dhampir is a half blood vampire and are usually guardians to the moroi, which are the full blooded vampires. Rose's best friend, Lissa is a moroi and a royal one too, she's the last of her family, the Dragomirs.

In the last book, Last Sacrifice, the whole plot twist , is that there is ONE more Dragomir and Rose is ultimately dragged in to more fighting and turmoil in her attempt to find this vampire so Lissa's family could represent in the Clave. 

A summary of what happened beforehand and how it all adds up to the last book would be too long so i suggest you go and read the past five books. If you didn't read them and just read this one, many of the relationship issues would be confusing and the characters often reflect on past events in the previous books so reading the previous ones would benefit the reader and provide the maximum shock. I love the Vampire Academy series but this final edition just left me speechless, in a bad way. 

The main reason why i liked this series was the action you got when you read each word. Every time i read a scene, i could fully picture it in my mind but in this book, the scenes are dull and often uneventful. Because Rose is seperated from Lissa throughout the book, the author found a clever way to switch back between characters and settings but in my opinion, that sort of took away from each setting and i couldn't submerge myself completely in to the book this time. 

I was very excited to see some more of Rose's relationship problems and dissapointed that the series ended just when everything seemed good, i wanted to know about her life after this book but the author has already stated that there will be no more books in this series. 

New characters do appear in this book but they are characters mentioned in past ones already but never to make an appearence. 

The book is much too long in my opinion. it's about 600 pages and maybe half of it was just useless conversations. I remember reading and reading, page after page until one climatical part then going back and just reading uneventful talk. The plot twist and the revealment of the last Dragomir was unpredictable but predictable in that you sort of had a small idea as to who the author would choose in an attempt to surprise the readers more.

Overall, i really recommand reading the Vampire Academy series and when you get to the last book, just think of it as the build up of something much more exciting because the true action doesn't happen until the last 50-100 pages or so.

3/5
(originally posted in the TPL Word Out program)