Frostbite by Richelle Mead

The second book in the Vampire Academy series. I purchased this one after the first book caught my interest enough to make me want to find out what happens next.

Author: Mead has known a lot of success in a relatively short period. She’s currently got three series on the go. Vampire Academy, certainly her most famous work to date, is riding the vampire wave created by Twilight. It also has to be said that her hair is an amazing shade of red, very pretty!

Presentation: Quite a large paperback – my book 1 and book 2 are from different publishers (potentially the British version and the American version) and book 2 is a larger size than book 1. The font is a relatively large size with wide spacing. There are 327 pages broken down into a prologue and 23 chapters.

Story: Strigoi have found a way of getting past the magical wards that protect the Moroi royals. They’re banding together, something not very common in Strigoi culture, in order to take out these Moroi – using humans to help them do their dastardly deeds, again something out of the ordinary. These events have turned the Moroi world upside down. Now, rather than the students at the Academy returning to their family homes for the Christmas vacation, they’re all being shipped off to a warded ski resort along with some family members who have chosen to join them – including Rose’s mother, also a guardian. Rose finds herself conflicted – first about her mother whom she feels abandoned her, choosing her duty as a guardian over raising her daughter; about Mason, a good friend who is romantically interested in her; about Dimitri who might choose to become another vampire’s guardian, instead of joining her as Lissa guardian – another vampire who is romantically interested in him; about Lissa who seems to be ignoring her in favour of her new boyfriend. But when things go horribly wrong in the Moroi world and some of her classmates recklessly set out to fight Strigoi on their own, Rose finds herself having to save the day. But not without consequences.

Thoughts and impressions: In this book, the friendship with Lissa, which is what I liked most about the first book, takes a definite backseat. But then, the romance doesn’t become overpowering either, though she does get slutty with multiple men.

Once again, the plot took a very long time to decide where it really wanted to be going and there was far too much filler leading up to that point. Once it did get there, it was interesting seeing how the characters reacted to the situation they found themselves in.

I could understand Rose’s confusion about Dimitri, wanting him for herself even though she knew their relationship isn’t at all acceptable in the eyes of her peers. But at the same time I didn’t really like how she threw herself at both Mason and Adrian.

I’m looking forward to seeing the ramifications of the use of magic in future books. I suspect that the Moroi will realise that if they can help in the fight against an ever more organised enemy then they should do.

Again, I found Rose very difficult to like at times. She pulls through when needed, but she’s such an unlikeable character the rest of the time that I can’t really understand why everyone regards her so highly.

Style: Same as in the first book. It is very colloquial, but this is understandable considering the narrator.  There were times when the syntax used most definitely was not English and I had to stop and reread to figure out how the sentence should have been constructed. Again, I didn’t feel that it had been edited as well as it should have been.

Final verdict: It was interesting enough. Again, good but not great. I will be reading book 3 to see where this is all going, though. I think I’m most interested in what will finally happen to Dmitri rather than Rose. 3 stars.

Extra notes: Bad language is quite frequently used the same way as most teens will use bad language. No sex.