Bloodlines (Bloodlines, #1)

by Richelle Mead

The first book in Richelle Mead's New York Times bestselling Bloodlines series

When alchemist Sydney is ordered into hiding to protect the life of Moroi princess Jill Dragomir, the last place she expects to be sent is a human private school in Palm Springs, California.

Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, Bloodlines explores all the friendship, romance, battles, and betrayals that made the #1 New York Times bestselling Vampire Academy series so addictive--this time in a part-vampire, part-human setting where the stakes are even higher and everyone's out for blood.

• ISBN10: 1595144730
• ISBN13: 9781595144737
• Publish Date: 29 May 2012 (first published 1 August 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Razorbill
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 448
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781595144737

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I haven't read the Vampire Academy series, and I think I should have before reading Bloodlines. I immediately felt like I missed something. WHAT IS THIS HISTORY SYDNEY HAS AND WHY WON'T YOU TELL ME! ... After referencing it a dozen times, Mead finally clues the reader in, and I managed to get through the whole book with only the Vampire Academy film for reference... but learn from my mistakes. Read Vampire Academy first. It will save much frustration.

As far as the characters go, I immediately decided that they were all horrible besides Sydney. I was wrong. Sydney is also incredibly shallow and the QUEEN of bad decisions. She lost SERIOUS points when she started complaining that she was not a size 0 at every possible opportunity. And the fact that every boy in the story fell in love with whiny Jill. I just couldn't relate to any of these entitled characters. Every decision made was for selfish reasons and half of them are so shifty I could scream.

I would have put this down if I wasn't so determined to find out the whole story behind the tattoos. As it turned out: CALLED IT. Every little shifty motivation, totally predictable. Still, they drew me in enough that I finished the book, which is something. That, and the world!concept was interesting. I enjoy the concept of different types of vampires and despite the clear brainwashing involved, the alchemists were interesting as well. The tattoo plot and the world get this two stars.

This didn't turn me off the Vampire Academy series - especially as I've heard that's better anyway. But I will definitely not read the sequel to this one.

[Angie]

I feel like I've waited way too long to finally read Bloodlines. It was good, but not great. It certainly didn't live up the hype that had built up in my mind after multiple reads of Vampire Academy. It's about a month after the ending of Last Sacrifice, and Jill's life is in danger as the only relative to the Moroi's teenage queen. Things are getting out of hand at Court, so the Alchemists step in to protect Jill and thus protect humans from learning that vampires exist. Sydney is assigned to be Jill's sister at a boarding school while they wait for the laws to change. Easier said than done.

Bloodlines started off really rough. I mean, really rough. Nothing about this set up makes any kind of sense, and every attempt by the characters to explain it felt forced. The Alchemists despise vampires and yet they're going out of their way to help them. They keep claiming it's to make sure that humans stay ignorant to their existence, but attacks on the royal family have nothing to do with humans. Furthermore, they already have issues with Sydney being "too close" to the vampires after she helped Rose, so why have her live with one and pretend to be her protective older sister? It really felt like a forced way to use Sydney as the main character but still have the original cast around.

The plot of Bloodlines reminded me a lot of Vampire Academy in the sense that it involves teenage drama and doesn't seem too serious. Except that it does become serious later on, which is what saved the book overall for me. The kids at Sydney and Jill's school are all obsessed with these metallic tattoos, eerily similar to Sydney's, which give them a high or increased athletic abilities. Obviously that's suspicious and Sydney has to investigate. I solved it long before she did, which made it feel dragged out. But there's an additional twist at the end which had me furious flipping pages! There's the potential for a lot of really interesting world building in the following books.

Bloodlines definitely wasn't all bad though. That last quarter was pretty fantastic. The last line in particular had me super excited to pick up the next book! The main saving grace was Adrian though. He's hilarious and heart-breaking and I couldn't get enough of him! I didn't buy him as a love interest for Sydney yet, but this author always surprises me when I least expect it.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[KitsuneBae]

See an overall review in Ruby Circle.

[empressbrooke]

This book was pretty terrible. The Vampire Academy series was excellent, so I was really glad that there was a spin-off. After reading Bloodlines, I wish Richelle Mead had quit while she was ahead. There are a number of things going on here:

Internal inconsistency. There were so many examples, but the worst one was how they're supposed to be closely guarding Jill to keep her from getting assassinated, but more than once she's out of their sight and missing for an entire day before anyone notices. In the universe Mead set up in the previous series, it doesn't even make any sense that Jill's guardian left her alone for such long stretches of time, or that their plan to protect her would inherently require her to be unguarded all day.

The characters are also internally inconsistent. If the goal was to write a sequel following the characters from the first series, one would think that Mead would write them the same as she did before. Instead, they're like cartoony cardboard cutouts. The main character is supposed to be really, really smart, but all of her actions are actually really dumb. She misses solutions to mysteries that would be obvious to any 7-year-old who read a Nancy Drew book.

Fake suspense is built by everyone keeping secrets from each other. Not only does the central mystery require the reader to be as dumb as Sydney who can't draw the most basic connection between facts, but all of the characters are hiding key plot points from Sydney and she just accepts it. This seems to serve the purpose of keeping the reader in suspense, but instead it just made me angry that no one was communicating and the plot was so flimsy that it would fall apart if people just talked to each other.

The writing is just awful. YA vampire novels can be well-written; Mead wrote an entire series before this one demonstrating that. But she either phoned this one in or declined an editor or farmed it out to teens who wanted to write Vampire Academy fanfic. It was a glaring example of telling-not-showing syndrome, and there are endless examples of the main character summing up entire scenes by saying things like, "I briefly recapped what happened" or "We hashed out a plan" or "I briefly explained what he had said." The word "recapped" is used excessively, and it's all done "briefly" for some reason.

I spent the entire book thinking I ought to put it down and move on to something better, but I carried on in this misguided sense that it would get better. I'm definitely stopping this series here and pretending it doesn't exist. If you loved the Vampire Academy series, I really recommend not even starting this one at all.

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

4★ Audiobook⎮Returning to the world of Vampire Academy was like coming home again! Mead did an excellent job incorporating VA characters and plotlines into this new series. So much, that it actually helped distract from Bloodlines' semi-significant plot weaknesses. Bloodlines in itself is very different from the Vampire Academy series. It is much less action-oriented and a lot slower-paced. In this book, Sydney Sage is a bit boring and flat, for my tastes. Her intolerance and "good girl" tendencies make her less likable as a main character, but the aforementioned distractions luckily kept me from ever wanting to stop listening. I can see the potential for character development with her and that is enough to keep me going. Not to mention the promise of more Dimitri in the next installment. ♣︎

[Katie King]

**3 Stars**

Confession time: I don't really remember a lot of what happened in Bloodlines. I read it over a month ago and never wrote a review until now...but I'll try my best.

I loved the Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series. It had its low points, but when it was good, it was great! I became heavily invested in Rose and Dimitri's relationship over the course of those six books, and I wished I could see more of them. I knew Bloodlines had come out a while ago, and that Dimitri shows up, but I wasn't super interested in hearing about Sydney. I couldn't (and still can't) even remember at what point in the VA series she had been. But I figured I might as well give it a shot because, duh, Dimitri!

Well, what I DO remember about Bloodlines isn't much. Sydney's dad was a complete controlling asshole, and some fellow Alchemist of Florida named Keith was super two-faced and semi-evil running a back alley tattoo shop (I guess that's an antagonist?). Adrian is the same old same old from Vampire Academy, but he gets a little more depth here with his spirit problems and especially Rose problems. Jill, the whole premise upon which this series is built, seems about as boring as her name implies, and honestly a bit whiny for someone in her position. She overreacts to everything even though there are like 10 people trying desperately to keep her safe.

Onto the worst part: one of my favorite characters, Dimitri, was one-sided and dull. The horror! Dimitri was honestly just there to rile Adrian up and maybe be like the fatherly voice of reason or something. It's probably a good thing Rose isn't in the story because a) it would ruin Adrian and b) it would just further push readers away from Sydney. Now Rose wasn't perfect, not at all, but she was pretty relatable, which is why tons of Mead's readers love her. Problem is, Sydney is SO different from Rose. She is pretty tough, just like Rose, but it's more out of being obedient and doing her duty. She doesn't have any passion to her - it's like just her job. Rose was fighting against who everyone thought she was and should be and trying to be who she wanted to be. Sydney is exactly who everyone expects her to be, there's no mystery or deep secrets following her around other than ~woo~ she doesn't completely hate vampires like she should. Too bad I never really felt like that was a big deal...

Overall there really wasn't anything that stood out to me. Nothing overly exciting happened that got me hooked. Actually, nothing in general really happened. Sydney also doesn't seem like the right fit for a narrator, but hopefully things will get better. Onto book two...

[Chelsea]

Quick Thoughts:
1. 20 pages in and in addicted. I can't continue with life until I finish this series.
2. Oh my gosh the characters are all amazing! The author paints such a vivid picture!
3. I'm absolutely in love with Adrian. Was an interesting character. I can't wait to see some romance with him!
4. Sydney is a great main. She's tough but smart. I love how we can see all her insecurities and watch as she tries to move past them.
5. Sydney is actually a female character who can think for herself. She's been brainwashed for a long time but she's still able to make her own decisions.

[Baroness Book Trove]

CAUTION! THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK ALREADY!!!!!!!



This is the first book that Richelle Mead has written that takes place I guess three years after Lissa takes the throne and we realized that Jill is her sister. Anyways this book is after something that happens to Jill at the Moroi Court and she has to be taken into hiding which is where Sydney comes in along with an evil Alchemist by the name of Kevin and some other people. Sydney if we remember was homeschooled and isn't really known for being very social friendly which is why she takes to living at a boarding school in California very different than her own home life.

Sydney takes her job as an alchemist pretty carefully but also she is trying to live a normal life at the school with her 'siblings' while also trying not to seem to friendly with Jill and Eddie in case Kevin tells their superior's and she is shipped away while her younger sister is put in instead. This book is a really good book since I mean yeah it isn't in Rose's prespictive which is all we had in the last series but this one is in Sydney's view. Which in the last series I always wondered, after we were introduced to Sydney, with what made that girl tick and with why she is like she is. I, at least, got some of those answers just in the first book.

I mean this book is a start to a really great series of six books much like the Vampire Academy series. Though I am curious with why Sydney's blood is soo different than that of a normal Alchemist blood? Guess I shall find out in the next book once I get done with some other books first!

Please go to my book review blog to read my other reviews! http://baronessbooktrove.blogspot.com/ you won't be disappointed in them I hope!

[reveriesociety_]

Well, this book was listed under paranormal romance.
Look right.
Look left.
There wasn't any romance here. *sigh* Despite this minor disappointment, I read this thing in one sitting because of the plotline. Few books have been so awesome that I didn't care they didn't have romance and enjoyed them. However, I feel like the book was too focused on the plotline, and not so much on Sydney herself.

I was excited when my friend told me that she was going to borrow me Bloodlines. I loved Vampire Academy and wanted so badly to start reading its spin-off novel and when I realized that Adrian was in it, I became even more excited.

When I heard that Sydney was going to be the main character in this book, I had a mixed-bag of feelings. In my opinion, no main character holds a candle to Rose's funny and bad-ass POV and even although Sydney didn't come close to awesome main character status, the girl can certainly hold her own. She's smart, honest, caring, knows what's right and what's wrong, but lacks a little when it comes to social skills. I feel as Sydney develops, she will blossom into an awesome main character. I loved the secondary characters who each had their own personalities. I got to meet up with some familiar characters like Jill, Eddie, Abe, Rose and I can forget Adrian who is heartbroken over Rose and who made me laugh at every single thing that he said. Even although the novel has no Romance, I loved the chemistry between Adrian and Sydney and hopes that it progresses into something more.

The book starts off a little slow, but towards the end, the pace started moving and I couldn't put the book down. I felt at times that the book was a little predictable and I was able to guess who the villains were. But that didn't affect my overall opinion of Bloodlines.

One thing that I wish I could have seen more of was the Alchemists way of life and the magical aspects, but I understood that the story was set in a non-magical boarding school and that the book was more focused on protecting Jill and focused more on the mystery aspects.

This book was a really good first series in the spin-off and I just hope that it will only get a lot better as the series continues. I can't wait to get my hands on The Golden Lily.