Vampire Academy (book and movie review)

During winter break this week I have read the first book in the Vampire Academy series(Vampire Academy, obviously) by Richelle Mead and seen the Vampire Academy movie in theaters. Having both experiences fresh in my mind I will review both separately and compare.

From first glance this book seems like another cheesy Twilight knock-off about angsty teenage vampires. Well, it is partially but it really is so much more. This is the first in a six book series about these fantastical creatures. Three kinds of vampires are introduced in this universe. Strigoi are your typical vampires, allergic to sunlight, living on blood and quite vicious. Moroi are peaceful vampires with magical elemental powers(water, fire, earth, air). Sunlight merely annoys them and they don't viciously kill for blood. Dhampirs are half Moroi, half human. They are meant to protect the Moroi with their lives and kill Strigoi if they get in the way. This story centers around Rose Hathaway, a Dhampir who has escaped from St. Vladimir's Academy, a school in Montana designed for Moroi and Dhampirs to train. She and her best friend, a Moroi princess Lissa Dragomir live on their own in the human world until they are sent back to the academy at the beginning of the novel. From there these two deal with mean girls, evil forces and mysterious occurrences. I enjoyed this novel. While there was a lot of world building taking place, to lay the foundation for the series, the mythology of these characters was very interesting and original. Unfortunately this did lead to some moments that were less than exciting. Each character was well set up, however, though the line between good and evil definitely had its twists and turns. I thought this book was an exciting introduction to the series and great for any fans of vampires, paranormal romance and mysteries.

This movie also can be suspect to prejudice. After all it was made by the people who brought you "Mean Girls" and "Heathers". By the advertising it looks to be a typical high school movie filled with clichés about love, teenagers and vampires. You would be entirely correct. While this movie was enjoyable, it was also riddled with pop culture references, stereotypical characters and cheesy romances. While perhaps the novels had some of these problems as well the movie made them much more evident. The references to such things as Pinkberry and iPhone 5 truly dates it. The mean girl characters seemed like watered down versions of the posse from the original "Mean Girls". One small detail that especially annoyed me was that some random characters had British or Australian accents even though the movie is set in the U.S. and there is no mention that any of these characters are from the aforementioned countries. The actors did give good performances though so I can overlook that detail somewhat. I am a bit of a sucker for cheesy high school movies though and I did enjoy it. Anyone who likes silly teen movies or liked "Mean Girls" or "Heathers" would probably enjoy this flick though if you read the book, there will most likely be nitpicking involved.