It's the second week of St. Vladimir's Summer School, where I'm reading through the Vampire Academy novels with Ashelynn and Jen. This week we are also being joined by Jen from Owl Read It (and, seriously, her blog title always makes me smile). Because there was a little bit of a, ah, disagreement about a certain character between Ashelynn and myself, I may have to write another post after I read hers.
Total Progress: 2/6
Vocab - (Confused? Check out last week's words.)
Guardians - Dhampirs who are trained as body guards for the Moroi.
Novice - A dhampir who is in training to become a guardian.
molnija - Marks taken by guardians that represent every Strigoi kill.
Book: Frostbite (Vampire Academy#2) by Richelle Mead
Novice - A dhampir who is in training to become a guardian.
molnija - Marks taken by guardians that represent every Strigoi kill.
Summary: When the Strigoi up the offensive, St. Vladimir's takes the entire school and their families on a ski trip so they can stick together for protection. While some of the world's best guardians start winding up dead, the novices of St. Vladimir's are itching to go on active duty.
Brief thoughts: Okay, this book was TOTALLY compelling. I seriously could not put it down, because I had to know what happened, but there were two things that I found extremely problematic. The first is that the major romance is between Rose and her TEACHER. I thought it was handled well in the first book, but the romance progresses in this book and it drove me crazy. I don't understand why Dmitri is in love with Rose. She is petty and childish. Someone who can see through your defenses is observant, not your freaking soul mate. Dmitri should have been responsible and removed himself from the situation. If they met later in life, fine, but right now it is an inappropriate relationship. They are at such different places in life that I don't believe there is any way for them to have a healthy and equal relationship.
Second, I didn't feel like there were any real consequences for Rose. Without spoiling the story, I will say that, yes, someone dies and that teaches Rose her lesson. But... no. Rose put that person in that situation. Then, instead of getting help when she found out what she did, she worried about getting in trouble and tried to save the day herself. THEN, she is told it's not her fault. Again, no. It is her fault. She learned her lesson and I think she won't make those same mistakes in the future, but that (no giving it away with him or her... it could be ANYONE who dies!) death is on her hands.
Finally, Adrian shows up in this book. I love him. I so totally love him. As a character. As a love interest, he is problematic. He has stalker tendencies and a fair amount of compulsion, which is unromantic. The age difference is a lot lower than between Rose and Dmitri, but again, it's less about the number of years and more about their place in life. In some ways they are in completely different places, but in others, Rose is way more grown up than Adrian. This stands a better chance of working, but I think both characters are so emotionally dysfunctional that they will have more of a Spike/Buffy thing going on: Totally hot, but never going to actually work in a practical sense. Yes, I just referenced The Slayer in a book about good vampires.
Romance aside, I love the Moroi/Dhampir dynamic. It was fascinating. The Dhampir are treated as second class citizens even though they are responsible for keeping the Moroi (who refuse to defend themselves) alive. I can't wait to see how this society is challenged and evolves as the series goes on. If I was a dhampir... well, let's just say that I would not be walked all over.
Second, I didn't feel like there were any real consequences for Rose. Without spoiling the story, I will say that, yes, someone dies and that teaches Rose her lesson. But... no. Rose put that person in that situation. Then, instead of getting help when she found out what she did, she worried about getting in trouble and tried to save the day herself. THEN, she is told it's not her fault. Again, no. It is her fault. She learned her lesson and I think she won't make those same mistakes in the future, but that (no giving it away with him or her... it could be ANYONE who dies!) death is on her hands.
Finally, Adrian shows up in this book. I love him. I so totally love him. As a character. As a love interest, he is problematic. He has stalker tendencies and a fair amount of compulsion, which is unromantic. The age difference is a lot lower than between Rose and Dmitri, but again, it's less about the number of years and more about their place in life. In some ways they are in completely different places, but in others, Rose is way more grown up than Adrian. This stands a better chance of working, but I think both characters are so emotionally dysfunctional that they will have more of a Spike/Buffy thing going on: Totally hot, but never going to actually work in a practical sense. Yes, I just referenced The Slayer in a book about good vampires.
Romance aside, I love the Moroi/Dhampir dynamic. It was fascinating. The Dhampir are treated as second class citizens even though they are responsible for keeping the Moroi (who refuse to defend themselves) alive. I can't wait to see how this society is challenged and evolves as the series goes on. If I was a dhampir... well, let's just say that I would not be walked all over.
What I learned about Romance (after all, we are in summer school):
If you have bad judgement in love, you have bad judgement in life. This isn't exactly true, but Dmitri pissed me off and I ended up questioning every decision he made. I disagreed with almost everything he said.
The Spice Girls were wrong. "If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends." Rose and Christian hate each other, but they both love Lissa. And even though they certainly aren't friendly, they were able to make it work for the most part. I can't wait for more of Rose's losing-my-best-friend angst in book three.
The Spice Girls were wrong. "If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends." Rose and Christian hate each other, but they both love Lissa. And even though they certainly aren't friendly, they were able to make it work for the most part. I can't wait for more of Rose's losing-my-best-friend angst in book three.
Frostbite gets a Fake Steph Rating of...
Posts
I love this post. Buffy and Spike -- such a tragic,twisted, never-meant-to-be love story. I was never #TeamAngel
ReplyDeleteOkay, back to VA. The age difference thing doesn't drive me as crazy. To me he's a mentor more than a teacher. But in this book she just seemed to immature for him. I'm ahead in my reading and maybe that has sometohing to do with my opinion.
Spice Girls Wisdom -- awesome. (Though that's probably all the wisdom their songs have to offer.) Christian is one of my favorite characters!!
JEN. :O how can you not be Team Angel?? I mean, he's freaking hot! and aside from that, he's ANGEL. Spike is eeeevil.
ReplyDeleteO___o
anyway. so we discussed the BIG THING before I reread it, so I was relying on last year's reading memory which let me say: isn't that fantastic. But I think a certain person was acting irrational and if Rose hadn't given him that information, he would have done SOMETHING ELSE to get in trouble, you know? And she DID try to save him--despite not wanting to talk to Someone Up Higher Than Her--and tried to get him to come home. It was a wrong place wrong time type of deal!
also: I heart Adrian, just not as a love interest. But man is he amazing. <3 Wait until you get to Bloodlines! that's his and Sydney's story. :)
LOL! I love the lessons you learned in love. I wanted to join you guys but I had other reading obligations and I didn't want to feel too rushed. When I finally read these I want to savor them.
ReplyDeleteNot gonna lie, the Dimitri/Rose relationship kinda creeps me out a bit. I mean, he's her instructor, and he lets himself fall for her? He shouldn't of let things go that far.
ReplyDeleteI was totally sad when that person died :( I really enjoyed that character!
Bahahaha, I LOVE this, especially that you used it to disprove the logic of The Spice Girls. You = freaking amazing.
ReplyDeleteI totally like Adrian way better than Dimitri. He's def not perfect, although I do remember him as improving more as the series continues (though it's been a while and I could be wrong). I seriously could not get past the dating his student thing. Honestly, I was creeped out by Riley for that and they were both LEGAL. So yeah, not a fan when it happened here. He should have waited until she graduated. ARGH.
The other thing with age gaps, especially when one is that young is what you mentioned: they're in such different places. There's going to be a lot of stuff that is important to her that he'll be dismissive of, because who the eff cares about teenage drama as an adult. From her point of view, he'll be all stodgy and boring when working on adult stuff. WHAT IS THE APPEAL?
I don't know Steph, I think I would have big problem if my friends hated my boyfriend and vice versa. I'm not saying that they have to love each other but if they really hate each other that much it would really bother me.
ReplyDeleteIt is a little strange for me because I'm reading these posts out of order and I seem to recall that the teacher/student relationship wasn't as big of a problem for you in the next book right? I mean I know you mentioned it and said that you didn't like it, but I don't remember you being that up in arms about it. So I guess that is a good thing? Is it?