Spirit Bound [Mead]

Book: Spirit Bound [Vampire Academy #5]
Author: Richelle Mead
Genre: YA: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Review: After graduating from high school, Rose and Lissa head to court where Lissa prepares for college and Rose awaits her guardian assignment. Meanwhile, Rose commences her plan to 'rescue' Dimitri from his Strigoi state with her friends assistance.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Our heroine Rose has always been feisty, funny and selfless, but her portrayal in this book seemed inconsistent with previous installments. She risked the lives of Lissa and another friend to break a criminal out of prison (I'll just ignore the ridiculousness of 3 teens, just out of high school breaking into a high security prison with minimal effort) with the prospect that Victor (the criminal) may help "save" her true love Dimitri. Meanwhile, when she gets the chance to kill Dimitri, she freezes and cannot do it. This results in multiple deaths that Rose doesn't seem to harbor much guilt for.

Meanwhile, Lissa is able to successfully charm a stake (once again, let's ignore that she could barely charm a piece of jewelry with weeks of practice but managed this super complicated charm in a few days..) and somehow staked Dimitri (hmm....Lissa, who we know is physically weak stabs him not once but 3 times on her own while Dimitri can't fight her off...granted he was burning but it doesn't seem feasible the strongest guardian of all time would just stand there). That being said, I enjoyed Lissa's storyline in this book, especially the rekindling of her relationship with Christian and her emerging strength as a character. Christian has always been one of my favorites and I enjoyed all of his scenes.

After Dimitri is 'saved' from his Strigio state, he doesn't want to see Rose. I found this portrayal very honest-he killed many people, tried to kill her and he is embarrassed by his actions. He needs time. Rose is offended and insensitive to his feelings, reducing her to a crying, selfish ex-girlfriend who I just wanted to throttle with her constant self-obsessed complaining. Meanwhile, she has a boyfriend (Adrian) who she does not love (she is aware the relationship isn't right, says so many times yet keeps him hanging) and it is very sad to read.

Finally, after the Moroi pass a controversial new law, Rose mouths off to the queen but her language and behavior is so over the top (even for Rose) that I question how the maturity of her character (who made great strides in the previous book) could fall so fast. A predictable ending was not too much of a cliffhanger, but the appearance of Rose's eccentric father Abe shows promise for the final installment coming in December.

While there were many issues with the book (Rose went from one of my favorite heroines to someone I wanted to repeated slap across the face), I read this book in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it. Mead knows how to write an interesting book!

Book Junkie's Grade: B