The Ruby Circle (Bloodlines, #6)

by Richelle Mead

[KitsuneBae]

ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

First things first, February the 25th is my birthday. I made sure that days prior and during my birthday, I am reading a spin off series of one my fave urban fantasy series in the world, Vampire Academy. I just thought that I have to read something awesome during my birthday that isn't Harry Potter you know... Turns out that I should have stuck with Harry Potter.

Bloodlines ruined my birthday in more ways than I can count. The first three books were awesome particularly that we're still getting to know our characters with Sydney's despicable personality...what with the racism, holier-than-thou, snobbish attitude and all. Mind you, I didn't hate her for that. In fact, it was really interesting to see Sydney being humbled through books 1 to three. And yes, it was so satisfying to finally see her falling inlove for the evil creature that is Adrian. I must say that everything was going well with the series, then Fiery Heart, Silver Shadows and Ruby Circle happened. (The only thing that really irked me from books 1-3 was the fact that Sydney was just so fucking perfect. Her being an insufferable know-it all does not have that endearing quality that Hermion Granger has. )

Good heavens, I never thought that once-uber-cool Adrian and stoic Sydney could be so soppy when it comes to love. Every time they have this monologue about their so-special-love-against-all-odds, I always have this urge to puke my guts out because, come on, there's only so much corny stuff that I can stomach in a span of 7 successive days.

Aside from the corny stuff, I cannot see the need as to why Mead has to pair off every single side character with a loveteam. And all those drama between Eddie, Jill, Angeline, Neil, and Trey (oi, there's also between Ms. Telliwerger and Malachi Wolfe, Marcus and Carly) made the whole series feel like a cheap sitcom about teenagers falling in love left and right. Just kill me now please.

And then, the fucking Las Vegas wedding happened complete with running-while-the-baddie-alchemists-are-chasing-after-you with Sydney and Adrian in their wedding garb. So after all that crazy stuff, there's a baby and Sydney and Adrian pursued a very domesticated life that just didn't fit in into the whole picture considering all the things that had happened.

So as you can already picture out, no matter how awesome my birthday is, a part of it was still wasted on a series that could have been wonderful and amazing as Vampire Academy if only it was executed well. Le sigh.

Just to summarize it all:

Books 1-3 Average rating: 3.5 stars
Books 4-6 Average rating: 2 stars