Series: Vampire Academy, book #5
Published: May 18th 2010 by Penguin/Razorbill
Details: Hardcover, 489 pages
My Rating: 4.5/5
My Summary:
Rose graduates from The Vampire Academy and goes to the court with Lissa and other guardians. It doesn’t take long until she has a new crazy plan in store, to save Dimitri from the undead. I loved this roller-coaster from the beginning to the end all though the end was quite a cliff-hanger this time. Can’t wait to dive into the final book Last Sacrifice.
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My Full Review:
This is the 5th installment of the Vampire Academy Series, a series I have gradually got drawn into, the more books I’ve read. I devoured the previous book Blood Promise, where Rose goes to Siberia in order to find Dimitri and kill him. She fails that mission and ends up having to return to the Vampire Academy, knowing he is still out there in his undead Strigoi state.
Not many pages into Spirit Bound we learn that the tables have turned. Dimitri is now the one chasing Rose, and he is just waiting for her to graduate from the academy so that he can go after her. After the graduation, Rose and Lissa go to the court, along with other newly graduated guardians that are all waiting to receive their real-life assignments.
Rose however, has other things on her mind other than her new status as a guardian. She has heard rumours about someone once having restored a Strigoi back to the living. The one person that may be able to tell her more is Victor Dashkov, who is imprisoned in a high-security jail for his deeds towards Lissa (which you may remember from the first installment). Soon Rose has come up with a plan which includes breaking into Victor’s prison, and well, I won’t say anymore than that.
What I will say is that I loved reading the book. Let me break it up to you in points:
1) Adrian: Rose has started dating Adrian, and all though I am really a hard-core Dimitri fan, I can’t help but feel something for this guy. You can tell how much he cares about Rose, and it’s heart-breaking to watch, because no matter how much Rose tries to tell herself she’s over Dmitri, she is so not.
2) Lissa. Like so many other reviewers have commented, this is the book where Lissa grows a backbone, and it’s about time. We’ve watched Rose doing everything for Lissa (including drawing darkness from her), without really getting anything in return. In this installment, Lissa finally shows us why she is worthy of Rose’s friendship and devotion.
3) Dimitri. Well, I did see that coming, all though maybe not that soon. His depression made very much sense to me. Who wouldn’t feel depressed with those memories haunting you? I only hope he’ll overcome it.
The ending was a huge cliff-hanger that I really didn’t see coming at all. Can’t wait to see what happens to Rose and all my other favorite characters in the final installment The Last Sacrifice! All in all, a great read!
After Twilight... 
your reviews of the series made me curious… but even if I never read any of the books I already have the feeling that I’ll like Dimitri very very much… and reading that Rose is dating someone else is making me dubious if I will enjoy it… (when my friend told me about the Twilight series a couple of years ago and spoke about the plot I had the feeling I would totally like Edward Cullen and that was correct… he was the character who made me fall in love with the series…
Well, Dimitri is almost up there with Edward Cullen. Almost but not quite. The fact that she dates Adrian for a while makes sense given what happens to Dimitri. But I don’t want to spoil that for you. All in all, it is a great series, very easy to read, great world-building and characters, romance, friendship, lots of action. Definitely worth while a try 🙂
I am reading Spirit Bound now and I am just a few chapters in.
I love the saga but I really don’t understand nor like the choice Rose did about dating Adrian.
She is in love with Dimitri and keeps in planning her way to make him dhampir again. So once and if she will succeed what does she plan to do? Say “bye bye Adrian, you were a good second choice I used now I don’t need you anymore, go away”, or have two boyfriends, or even worse choose Adrian over Dimitri?
I am sure Dimitri will be back in the story but for now I disagree with Rose.
And Lissa and Christian are being totally silly too. They love each other and for stupid pride or whatever are pushing against each other…
The only reason I keep in reading the book is Dimitri.
But I am not liking so far. Let’s see what will be later…
more comments to come!
hi Tess
I just finished reading the book. I loved every single part with Dimitri in, and the last part of the book especially. But I didn’t like at all Rose being with Adrian. It’s what took me out from the story. It didn’t feel real and it was very boring for me.
I liked a lot Lissa behavior, I liked her going with Rose in her mad research to find the cure to Dimitri Strigoi-problem and as you said in your review too, she finally grows some backbone… and when she saved Dimitri with Christian help it was veeeery good.
Overall the book is absolutely well written and if there was not the Rose-Adrian relationship I would have loved it totally.
That really made the story go down.
But anyway I am still very very engrossed in the story and I am going to read the last book right now.
By the way I really like Rose father and one of my favorite part was when Dimitri takes down many royal guards in the attempt to protect Rose when they want to arrest her… even if two seconds before he told her again he doesn’t love her… I never believed that words… I am sure he was depressed and everything but he loved her always. And his actions (protecting her) were mirroring his true feelings…
interesting character was the queen, Tatiana… was she a bad woman? Or good? And I am wondering “who the heck set Rose up?”
More comments to come!
(I didn’t find a review of Last sacrifice in your blog…)
Hi Jenika,
I agree about Adrian. Rose should have realized that she was still in love with Dimitri. She should never have tried anything with Adrian, for everyone’s sakes. That said, I always had a soft spot for Adrian as well. I never wanted him to be with Rose (Rose was destined to be Dimitri) but I did want him to be happy, with someone. I also really enjoyed everything about Rose and Dimitri, of course. Such a super steamy romance!! Rose’s father is a fantastic character, you can really tell where Rose got her rebellious traits from! Great to hear your comments! Oh, and I never got around to review Last Sacrifice – but I might some day, just to complete the reviews of the series. Thanks, Tess
Hi I finished to read the Last Sacrifice too (I spent all night reading it, I couldn’t put it down).
I really liked this series, and I liked the ending too.
thank you so much for reviewing the series, I am very happy I read it!
The thing that spoiled a lot the last book was the dating of Rose and Adrian as I didn’t like it at all but everything else was very interesting.
Of all the saga my favorite book was probably Blood Promise… but all the books were interesting.
Thank you again!
🙂
p.s. at the end we didn’t see anymore the shadow kissed crow who appeared at the end of the first book…l thought it might have been an interesting characters…
Wow, already finished with the whole series. You really devoured it, I’m glad! I did too! My favorite was easily Blood Promise as well. I loved everything about it! And I agree, it had a very good ending! Thanks, Tess