The Vampire Academy series was a lot like literary popcorn. Fun and fast urban fantasy for the YA set. Sydney's spin-off is a bit less fun, but that's probably due to her personality. I actually really like Sydney. She's extremely stubborn and righteous. She has issues - both of the OCD kind, and of the morality/belief system kind. She's constantly conflicted, stuck between duty to the cause that her entire life revolves around, and between her budding relationship with her Moroi and dhampir friends. But Sydney is sometimes frustratingly obtuse. She doesn't get things that the reader realized eons before she does. You spend half the novel wanting to shake her and say, "Open your eyes!" It's very faithful to her character, it just doesn't make much fun in reading sometimes. This series is starting to grow on me. Its a far cry from the original and by no means absolutely amzingly fantastical or anything, but it still has that core element of meads writing that i guess is what got me hooked at first.The one thing that i thought this book lacked was originality, i mean come on the whole 'good but slightly suspicious guy turned bad in the end' *cough trey **cough lee. In saying that though the actual plot was woven well and had some interesting parts, mainly the sadrian romance and stanton being all mysterious and terwilligers random ass magic, so yeah the plot is good and interesting! but the overall theme i've seen a million times before. It was quite predictable at times but also some unlikely parts, which is always good. Some of the conversations between sydney and brayden though... did we really need an in depth conversation on renewable energy? i think not. I love how we're getting to see this other side to adrian because i didn't think he was fleshed out enough in vampire academy, but what annoyed me was how obvious he was being and how oblivious sydney was being, like omg girl!!! why?! hrrgh... anyway, i can tell this is gonna cause me some major stress in the near future :) 3.5 stars
What do You think about The Golden Lily (2012)?
It takes a whole lot of talent to make the second book better than the first but somehow you did (:
—JunsPruns
