Bloodlines review

Bloodlines
by Richelle Mead
paperback
421 pages

Synopsis via Goodreads:

The first book in Richelle Mead’s New York Times bestselling Bloodlines series

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.

Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, Bloodlinesexplores 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.

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Why?

Why?

Why did I wait so long to read this?

I loved the Vampire Academy, I read the first book on a recommendation from a friend and after that first book I was hooked! I had book 2 overnighted to me and then had the rest of the books shipped to me. This friend also recommended me to read Bloodlines but for some reason, I didn’t get to it straight away. At first, it’s because I was a bit irritated with her, so I was being bratty and not listening to anything she said. Next my reason for not starting this series was because I didn’t have the rest of the books in the series, I had bought the first two and picked up the third at a used bookstore. So I didn’t want to start reading it because I didn’t have the rest of the books and I didn’t want to buy the rest of the books until I started reading the series. It just goes around in a circle huh?

I finally broke that chain.

I received a gift card to Amazon for Christmas so I used that to order the rest of the books in the Bloodlines series. Yay!

So yes I started Bloodlines and I read it within a day! My concern when I was thinking about reading it was that as soon as I finished book 1, I was going to need book 2 and so on with the rest. I was right.

I love this little secret world that Richelle Mead built and hid within our own, I love the characters and I didn’t realize how much I had missed them until I saw Rose’s and Dimitri’s names pop up.

So let’s talk characters, one thing that really annoyed me was a lot of the hypocrisy that the Alchemists have, towards vamps and dhampirs, but also the humans who volunteer as feeders. The revulsion Sydney felt when seeing vamps feeding processes was a little understanding, but the comments about vamps just taking blood when the Alchemists take vamp blood really stood out in my mind.

Also, the blatant sexism really frustrated me, I was expecting it though and what I really enjoyed was the small steps Sydney took to fight that sexism forced on her from the other Alchemists and her own father. Keith pissed me off to no end and it satisfied me to see Sydney get to a point where she wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore. I kept feeling really bad for her whenever Keith would throw her under the bus and her father would call and berate her.

Even though I had issues with two events they didn’t lower the book for me at all, if anything they really emphasized the character growth that Sydney experienced.

So Rose, Lissa, Jill, and Dimitri weren’t the only previous character name to pop up, We get to see Adrian! I adored him in the Vampire Academy and was so happy to see him as a primary character in this story.

The last thing that frustrated me with the story were the issues that Sydney and the Alchemists encountered that had very obvious answers and solutions, seriously if they just followed their train of thought for more than two seconds they would see the answer is sitting right in front of them. But whatever.

I could not put this story down for the life of me, it was just fantastic, even with those issues I had, they did not damper this reading experience for me. I cannot wait to continue on with the series and it has been the only thing I can think about right now. Actually has soon as I finish this up I am going to start the Golden Lily.