Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Back Cover: Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with a rare gift for harnessing the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest vampires- the ones who never die. The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a Dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making Lissa one of them. After two years of freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fraught with danger... and the Strigoi are always close by. Rose and Lissa must navigate their dangerous world, confront the temptations of forbidden love, and never once let their guard down, lest the evil undead make Lissa one of them forever... So I had to read this book for my english class. At first I didn't like it at all cuz I was really confused with all these classes of people, but then about halfway through it got really interesting really fast! We watched this video on youtube today about why readers like the book/series and who their favorite character was and I thought it was funny because most of them said Dimitri, or Adrian, who isn't in the first one, and how girls just care about the guys in the book because they think they're hot haha! And the book itself was kinda just high school and let's add in some vampire things with the dance and high school drama, but I like how the Moroi have to be protected because they need to stay away from the Strigoi! I thought it was kinda funny/weird that a necklace could have compulsion and make Rose and Dimitri have more lust for each other when it was there anyways! It made it better, and you kinda want them to get together! Then another weird relationship was Lissa and Rose where they're not really lesbians, but it kinda hints at it because Rose actually does like her blood being sucked by Lissa and she has moments of jealousy when she feeds off of others. Of course at the end you never would have thought that Victor was the one who was taking Lissa away from her powers. I thought the fire and water speciality thing wasn't too original, but the spirit part was. I wouldn't mind reading the next book just to see how it goes and if it's as action packed as the second half of the first one. Overall, I liked it.