Speaking of Book Reviews....

This is technically my 4th blog.  I abandoned my others for various reasons.  But I saved the book reviews, and thought I'd post them as I'm looking back to where I've come from in order to see where I'm going.  At the time, I was writing a book review blog only, so this is a different format than usual on Thyme For Courage.  Please remember that these links go to Amazon.com, and if you purchase them, I'll get a commission on it.

In the spirit of Christmas, I will give you a gift idea for any reader:  The Vampire Academy books are, in my honest opinion, surpassed only by the Harry Potter series.  I have yet to meet anyone, online or in real life, that has a bad thing to say about this series.

It's considered to be a sub-group of children's books known as Young Adult, which I've learned means the story is about teens, as opposed to "adult" books that do not revolve around "school life."  Even the last book in the Harry Potter series is classified as a children's book and recommended for ages 9 and up--but is not something I'd feel comfortable letting my son read on his own.

I think it's funny that I was sooo excited to finish the third book of the Vampire Academy books, not knowing that it ends on a HUGE cliffhanger and it was PURE TORTURE to wait for Blood Promise to come out.  Seriously, Richelle Mead is an amazing author, she had three and even FOUR different series she is writing at the same time to very different audiences.  However, she is also an absolute SADIST considering the ending of Shadow Kiss!!

This review compares Twilight to Vampire Academy, which is as fair a comparison as Twilight can ever get.  However, when I wrote this review, I had yet to see the Twilight movie, nor was I aware of the pure hatefulness that is directed at Twilight these days.  I loved the Twilight books then, and I still do now--but they cannot stand up the awesomeness of Vamp Academy.

Also please excuse my writing style--I've learned to write much better reviews in the last 2 and a half years!  It's hard for me to publish this without correcting it, but that would defeat its purpose.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

I've read 2 books in the last 2 days, and now I'm on the 3rd of the series. I am totally in love with this series! They are Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, Book 1), Frostbite (Vampire Academy, Book 2) now I'm on Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy, Book 3)by Richelle Mead. 

I'm going to just come out and say it: they're better than the Twilight books! Twilight was very...well, the characters were a little naive and immature. Twilight's author Stephenie Meyer, I'm sure, felt this was fine since the characters in Twilight ARE naive and immature, since they're only 17. But the Vampire Academy characters are not that way, even though they're about characters in the same age group. Both Twilight and Vampire Academy are Young Adult books too, so I'm comparing apples to apples here all the way down the line. 

I highly recommend both series, and both are keepers for sure, but of the two series, it's Mead's Vampire Academy books that I'm really looking forward to continuing. It's been a long time since I've been this excited about a new series, and I'm savoring each moment of this 3rd book :) Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, Book 4) is coming out in September. Yet another reason for me to look forward to the fall!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To be thorough, here's the books in order:

1. Vampire Academy
2. Frostbite
3. Shadow Kiss
4. Blood Promise
5. Spirit Bound
6. Last Sacrifice


And the spinoff series that begins only a month or so after Last Sacrifice is Bloodlines.  The 2nd book in this series is out in June 2012: The Golden Lily: A Bloodlines Novel.