Richelle Mead is a relative newcomer in the Urban Fantasy field (as she labels her works), but she’s got three books out already and will have five out before the end of this year. Vampire Academy is the first in her Vampire Academy series; it’s also her only YA-intended work to date. The author describes herself thus: “I have red hair and subsist entirely on Kona coffee.” One might stereotype from this tagline that her books are high-energy, with volatile female characters. Unfortunately for the world of political correctness, that’s true — about this book, at least.

In Rose and Lissa’s world, there are vampires: Moroi or Strigoi. Moroi are mortal, capable of tolerating a limited amount of sunlight, and have the capacity to be moral. Strigoi are immortal; they’re generally formed when a Moroi or a dhampir goes rogue and kills someone when taking his or her blood. They’re evil, of course, and dhampir (a half-Moroi, half-human or dhampir, with extraordinary strength, reflexes, and senses, but no need for blood) are supposed to kill them. Right now, though, there are too many Strigoi, and they generally try to kill Moroi — especially the members of the twelve Moroi royal families. Rose is a dhampir; her mother is one of the most famed dhampir guards in existence. Lissa is a very high-ranking member of the Moroi royalty. They’re both in their mid- to late-teens, and they’re, at the beginning of the book, on the run. However, they get caught quite early on, and dragged back to St. Vladimir’s — an academy for Moroi and dhampir that tries to prepare them both for higher education and for life in what is admittedly a dangerous world. The situation that caused them to be on the run still exists, though, and Lissa has many enemies based on her rank. It’s up to Rose to keep her safe and sane. Can she?

Mead’s world, complete with its different kinds of vampires, is not thoroughly original, but it is fairly inventive (for example, the ways to tell a Moroi from a Strigoi aren’t in normal vampire lore). We aren’t told everything we need to know at once, which is generally a sign of a more skilled writer; Rose, who narrates in the first person, reveals things gradually. We aren’t even told why they’re on the run until quite far into the work. It annoyed me at first, though: I read the beginning and ended up putting the book down for a few days, since I had no idea who the characters were, why they were in a college dorm (that I’m still not sure about, although I get they were hiding there), and why they didn’t want to go back to St. Vladimir’s, although they seemed to deal with it just fine once they were there. Eventually, though, the flow of gradual revelations became much more natural, and looking back, I liked the pacing quite a bit.

Rose has similar coloring to another vampire novel heroine, but she describes it as “the color of the inside of an almond”, which I thought was much more realistic than ‘ivory’. I liked Rose a lot — she wasn’t afraid of much, including relationships, intimacy, and asking for help in some situations. She and Lissa were great foils for each other — the emotionally and physically delicate but magically strong Moroi versus the earthy, physically strong, and magically null (as are they all) dhampir. The rest of the characters were somewhat less well-defined but all seemed to be quite true to life. I was especially amused by the fact that Rose seemed to be rather middle-class — one of the other Moroi was making fun of her for wearing thrift-store clothing, and her retort was that the girl wore Target clothing. (Not even high-price designer knockoffs — things that are all under $20 apiece.) Other vampire associates seem only to wear Prada and D & G, and while I’m sure a lot of them did, it felt to me like Rose was a little more realistic.

I enjoyed the book a great deal, despite some parts of the beginning, and I’d definitely recommend this to a YA reader who liked Stephenie Meyer’s work but wanted something that was a LOT better-written. However, I do have to give one warning: this book could be extremely triggering for someone who struggles with self-injury, specifically cutting. If you have this problem, I would recommend NOT reading this book. Despite that, though, I’ll give it 4/5 stars.