The Age Gap...
I honestly do not know what I was expecting from this book and I regret picking it for my final blog post but… oh well.
Welcome back to another episode of me discussing popular YA books I did not enjoy. Today up on the chopping block we have Vampire Academy written by Richelle Mead.
“I knew perfectly well that there weren’t a lot of girls at this school who looked as good in a bra as I did.”
Rose has a best friend named Lissa Dragomir who is a moroi princess. (Moroi’s are basically good vampires.) Throughout the story Rose trains to be Lissa’s guardian to protect her from evil. Specifically, the Strigoi, also known as evil and immortal vampires. The story starts out with Rose and Lissa on the run from the Academy they went to school at. However, they are quickly captured and brought back to continue schooling at St. Vladmir’s Academy. At the Academy Rose and Lissa must navigate predictable and somewhat disturbing romances (more on this later) and attacks from the infamous Strigoi.
To start off my comments on this book I would like to discuss Rose, the main protagonist of the story.
I really really REALLY disliked Rose.
First off Rose is so self absorbed. She is constantly thinking about herself and her wants and needs. I find it honestly very ironic that Rose’s job, that she constantly describes being very important to her, is guarding Lissa and thinking about what she needs. Yet, Rose cannot stop thinking about herself. Specifically, Rose is very focused on her looks and needing to look pretty.
“I knew I was pretty, but to Moroi boys, my body was more than just pretty: It was sexy in a risque way.”
“Her… and all the other female guardians. They’re all leathery and stuff. Fighting and training and always being outdoors - they aren’t pretty anymore.”
Rose’s job is literally to be an awesome warrior and be able to defend against immortal vampires yet her biggest worry is not being “pretty anymore.”
Another thing that really irritated me is the amount of girl hate that Rose radiated during this book. If you have read any of my other blog posts you would know that one of my biggest pet peeves in YA books is girls putting other girls down in order to look better for a guy.
Especially in a genre so catered to young teenage girls I think authors need to be more critical about the type of messages they put into their writing. Also, this idea of women having to compete with each other for men enforces so many harmful misogynistic ideas and perpetrates the belief that women need to be enemies when trying to gain success instead of working together and being allies.
Additionally, as I mentioned in my Selection post I would not be so irritated if the author tried to make any social commentary at all. But, unfortunately Mead fell short.
A final reason (although honestly I could come up with about ten more) that I dislike Rose is her hypocrisy. Rose is constantly thinking about getting together with guys and making out with guys or making some sort of innuendo. (apparently Mead forgot this was supposed to be a YA book) A few times during the book Rose is described making out with different guys. She also is always flirting with everyone:
“You flirted with the other guys simply for the sake of flirting. You flirted with Jesse in the hopes of getting semi-naked with him. He was a Royal Moroi, and he was so hot, he should have worn a warning: Flammable sign.”
This on its own is not inherently a bad thing. In my opinion it is a little much for a YA book but there is not anything bad necessarily about being a flirty person. HOWEVER, what irritates me is how hypocritical Rose is about it. Even after everything she does that I just mentioned she acts so morally superior to Lissa just because Lissa had been with Aaron???
The second thing that bothered me about this book was the age gap. Again, like with my point above, having a large age gap in a relationship is not inherently wrong, what I take issue with is when one party is a minor and the other partner is a full adult who can legally drink.
In Vampire Academy Rose eventually starts dating another guardian named Dimitri. (This is not really a spoiler because it is SO obvious from the first chapter.) In spite of having as much chemistry as a bag of flour Dimitri and Rose somehow fall in love. Even ignoring the obvious issue (THE AGE THING) this relationship made no sense. Dimitri and Rose had practically nothing in common besides their mutual “hotness” that is described WAY too frequently. Rose had more chemistry with literally any other character in this entire book. (cough cough Lissa)
However, despite my complete confusion at Dimitri and Rose’s pairing, my main issue with the relationship is that she is seventeen and he is TWENTY FOUR! Rose is not even legally an adult and she is dating someone with an almost fully developed prefrontal cortex. (although he clearly does not act like it.) AND, even when the author tries to address it they apparently forget very quickly and still end up together at the end.
“I’m an adult and you’re a child…
Don’t you think I'm pretty?”
Finally, a third and final thing that ultimately cemented this book's one star rating is the way it handled mental health. TW: Mental health, depression, and self harm. When Richelle Mead decided to write Lissa struggling with severe depression she had an excellent opportunity to spread awareness about mental health. But unfortunately Mead only perpetrated negative beliefs around mental health.
For example when Rose finds out that Lissa is self harming she, again making things all about herself, thinks about how she wishes that “she had a normal best friend” Then later with Lissa gets put on antidepressants Rose thinks about how those types of pills usually just make people happy but they make Lissa normal. This is such a harmful stance on mental health and it is so frustrating to read in a YA book. Painting the idea that being “normal” is equivalent to not struggling with mental health is such a bad message that should never be spread to teenagers especially in a society where many people work every day to make sure people are aware and conscious of mental health struggles.
I could probably go on forever about other gripes I had with this book, including the super obvious dramatic plot twist at the end but, I think I will stop at three.
I personally think the only thing that could have made this book better is if Lissa and Rose got together. Nobody can convince me that Lissa and Rose didn't have 100x better chemistry than Rose and Dimitri. Also, I honestly think it could have been a much more meaningful romance arc that could display a bit more diversity, (I also seriously thought that Lissa and Rose were going to be the forbidden love story in the first few chapters because of the amount of on page chemistry they have.)
Anyways, overall I really disliked this book and could not recommend it to anyone. If you really like Twilight maybe you will enjoy this book but read at your own risk. Thank you for reading my final blog post of the school year. This has been such a fun experience and I really hope people have enjoyed reading my posts as much as I have enjoyed writing them. I probably will continue trying to post reviews of books I read on goodreads.
Written by Julia
What was Mead on when she wrote this book? "Wead?" It seems like Rose doesn't know what she is talking about, and how to help others instead of herself. Why such a bad model in a YA novel? It is appalling that there are so many bad YA novels written for people our age. I've really enjoyed reading your grilling reviews, and I'm happy to hear that you will be continuing your reviews of current publications. This book seems like a very appropriate choice for your final post. Well done!
ReplyDeleteI like how you didn't just give an overview of the book, but actually gave some big reasons on why you didn't really enjoy the book. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI think I heard about this book a few years ago, but decided not to read since it sounded pretty Wattpad-y; apparently I was right... Anyhoo, this is such an incredible blog post and I especially love your points about the hypocrisy, lack of social commentary, and blatantly misogynistic notions. Like, if you're gonna write a book catered to a young audience, AT LEAST have some mind about what ideas you're pushing. I feel like so many YA books follow similar themes, and it really should be talked about.
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