(I was reading)- Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

                    

For the first time, i judged a book by its cover! I usually never do that, this time the Vampire title made me roll my eyes and presumed the plot would be about an erotic Vampire and damsel in distress who falls madly in love with the Vampire and gets into crisis because his Vampiric world is a twisted one! The book wasn't as bad as i expected, in fact i am looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

I picked it up because it ended up on my list for a reading challenge on http://www.goodreads.com/

"She must be protected at all times from the fiercest and most dangerous vampires of all-the ones who never die.
Rose Hathaway is Lissa's best friend and her bodyguard. Now after two years of illicit freedom, they've been dragged back inside the iron gates of St.Vladmir's Academy. The girls must survive a world of forbidden romances,a ruthless social scene and terrifying night-time rituals.
 But above all they must never let their guard down lest the immortal vampires take Lissa-forever..."


Richelle Mead had created a world of Vampires parallel to the "human" world. There are two types or species or categories sort of things in the book-Strigois and Morois.Another species are the dhampirs-they are like bodyguards for the Moroi vampires. And there is a complicated explanation behind their relationships and existence. The story's focus and main characters are Vasilisa Dragomir and Rose Hathaway. They are both best friend and bonded to each other in special way which makes them very close and instinctively protect each other from harm. Vasilisa a.k.a Lissa is a princess who has a special gift, which gets her into a lot of trouble. Rose Hathaway is her bodyguard, a novice one to be specific. Lissa and Rose face lots of social dilemma and gossip after their forced return to their Vampire Academy. The climax comes in when Lissa is kidnapped...


I didn't quite like Richelle's writing style, but the book kept me turning pages and get to end.But its her first novel,so kudos to that! The story seemed sort of random to me, sort of haphazard, but she wound-up her plot superbly and explained all the loose bits, which i really liked about the book. I found the social dilemmas and gossip to be very annoying, but i enjoyed the romantic bits and Rose's reckless and "tough" attitude.Also the back cover's reviews somehow portrayed a different plot from the one i came across in the book.The forbidden relationship and the night-time ritual thing i didn't get or find in the book. And i liked all the intriguing explanations of her Vampire world. It was an interesting one, as opposed to the one i expected!