Review of Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

by: Sarah
Release Date: August 23rd, 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Pages: 421 pages
Series: Bloodlines #1
Rating: ★★☆☆☆/ 2 out of 5

Blood doesn't lie...
Sydney is an alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of human and vampires. They protect vampire secrets - and human lives. When Sydney is torn from her bed in the middle of the night, at first she thinks she's still being punished for her complicated alliance with dhampir Rose Hathaway. But what unfolds is far worse. Jill Dragomir - the sister of Moroi Queen Lissa Dragomir - is in mortal danger, and the Moroi must send her into hiding. To avoid a civil war, Sydney is called upon to act as Jill's guardian and protector, posing as her roommate in the last place anyone would think to look for vampire royalty - a human boarding school in Palm Springs, California. But instead of finding safety at Amberwood Prep, Sydney discovers the drama is only just beginning...

Oh, Richelle Mead.



My feelings


They are mixed.


I know when you see 2 stars you immediately think oh they hated it, but in this case I literally do mean "It was okay". Not particularly good, just okay. 

I'm not super familiar with the Vampire Academy series (I only read one of the books) so I appreciated that this book takes time to recap and explain some shit that went down in that series, though it wasn't very cleverly threaded in. I could see how people know the VA series would find it really annoying having all this stuff retold. 

The writing in this book was...odd. It felt very amateurish. There was a lot of repetitive description. I think someone said something "dryly" a million times. There was also a lot of rapid time progression. I mean like literally there would be 5 word sentences that glossed over events that should have been fully fleshed out paragraphs. Also, not to mention this sort of nonsense:

“Okay,” I said, standing up. “Let’s go.”
In the car, Adrian turned to me.

I'm glad Sydney and Adrian were able to teleport from the middle of one scene to the next. 

There were several other incidents of this sort of writing which is just really fanfictiony and strange. A lot of the storytelling just felt kind of flat, there were some really great scenes scattered throughout but overall it was just so...meh.

Now, character-wise...I think this might be bad but, I liked Sydney? I mean, she's a very flawed character and I'm pretty sure she made all the mistakes but I don't know what it was about her...she had some good moments (and some dumb as hell ones) and I just felt her I'm sorry if this is an egregious offense but I felt her.  I think she has the potential to grow and develop into a really amazing character. I'm holding out for this. 

Adrian was...honestly I don't even know if I can put my feelings for him into words. He pissed me off a lot and most of his lines were just straight up dumb (but I did love some of the Sydney/Adrian banter) and his victimy bullshit wore on my patience like no other but I don't know you guys I just don't know the scene between he and Sydney when they're being all dynamic duo in the tattoo parlor it was just cute okay please leave me alone. And of course I liked that there's no romance-romance between them (not yet, anyway). That's always refreshing in YA.

This book has frazzled me. There was so much about it I found bland and shallow but the story itself was interesting and entertaining to me. I really like this world! It's one of the more interesting takes on vampires in YA I've come across. Although I don't come across a lot of vampire stories at all so maybe you shouldn't take my word for it.

EDIT: If you loved Bloodlines and I just offended your whole life, please forgive me! And take comfort in that in the time between writing this review and posting it I have read The Golden Lily and enjoyed that one much more. Will post my review  for that soon. 

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Review also on goodreads