Book Review: Bloodlines

TITLE: Bloodlines
Book 1 in the new Bloodlines
AUTHOR: Richelle Mead
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: vampires, drama, urban fantasy
PREMISE: Sydney's next job as alchemist is to protect young Jill, the newly discovered royal.
MY REVIEW: I admit, I was nervous when Mead announced a VA spin-off because spin-offs can go two ways: be utterly pointless (see Alyson Noels Immortals series spin-off) or bring something shiny and new to the table. There's usually very little in between room when it comes to spin-offs. Thankfully Bloodlines is the bring something shiny and new to the table type of spin-off. I was beyond pleased with this book. True some plotlines had me feeling deja vu (the Lauren bullying line is similar to the bullying in VA book one, Jill sometimes felt like book one Vissa and so on). But the deja vu was few and far between.
Mead is smart in putting this in Sydneys point of view. She's vastly different from Rose so we don't feel like we're getting Rose 2.0. We get an inside look into the way Alchemists work which is great because I was interested in them from the moment they were introduced in the VA series. Plus we learn more about Sydney herself and we get new perspectives on old characters. Plus previous side characters like Jill and Eddie get to take the spotlight this time around. Also, more Adrian. That's always a plus.
In short I loved this just as much as Vampire Academy. I'll even go as far as to say it's a little better then VA because Mead's writing has matured since book one. If you loved Vampire Academy you will love Bloodlines. If you haven't checked out VA yet, this is a good time to do so. You can probably read Bloodlines without reading VA, but you won't get as much from the book probably because there's a lot of tidbits in here for VA fans.
WHO SHOULD READ: Vampire Academy fans, vampire fans, Twilight fans
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five tattoos