Bloodlines (Bloodlines, #1)

by Richelle Mead

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.