Review: Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy #5) by Richelle Mead

Read and Reviewed for Vampire Book Club's Vampire Academy Re-Read Challenge

Synopsis (via Goodreads):

After a long and heartbreaking journey to Dimitri’s birthplace in Siberia, Rose Hathaway has finally returned to St. Vladimir’s—and to her best friend, Lissa Dragomir. It's graduation, and the girls can’t wait for their real lives outside of the Academy’s cold iron gates to finally begin. But even with the intrigue and excitement of court life looming, Rose’s heart still aches for Dimitri. He's out there, somewhere.

She failed to kill him when she had the chance, and now her worst fears are about to come true. Dimitri has tasted her blood, and she knows in her heart that he is hunting her. And if Rose won't join him, he won't rest until he's silenced her...forever.

But Rose can't forget what she learned on her journey—whispers of a magic too impossible and terrifying to comprehend. A magic inextricably tied to Lissa that could hold the answer to all of Rose's prayers, but not without devastating consequences. Now Rose will have to decide what—and who—matters most to her. In the end, is true love really worth the price?

My Thoughts: Oh, for the love of little pancakes, why don't you just rip out my heart and stomp on it a few times before shoving it back in my chest, Richelle Mead?  This was one of the hardest books for me to read because just as you think things are starting to move in the right direction for Rose, everything explodes on her.

Things that I really enjoyed this time around:

• Rose being Rose.  The girl knows how to kick ass and she throws herself whole-heartedly into whatever it is that she's planning.  The fact that she planned and pulled off a rescue mission/escape attempt from a high security prison for the one person in the world that Lissa fears above all others all to honor a promise she made to herself to do everything she could to save the love of her life from eternal damnation is pretty outstanding.  Or maybe I meant to say "psychotic".  Either way, Rose is Rose and you have to love her.
• Adrian.  Oh, Adrian.  I love your playboy ways.  I love the way you try to drink yourself into oblivion.  I worry about you and the instability that spirit brings to you.  I don't want anything to happen to him yet I keep looking at how the darkness is creeping up on him and how he doesn't have his own Shadow-Kissed and I can't see how it will end well.
• Dimitri.  I hate that after everything he's had to go through he now has to deal with the guilt of hurting the ones he loves.  His blind devotion to Lissa disturbs me a bit.  He's always been the stoic Guardian, showing his emotions in flashes and unguarded moments.  To see him so beat down to where only Lissa's presence brings him peace and then having all that naked emotion rolling off of him was hard to watch.  He's Dimitri.  He's the best at everything.  It's hard to see a hero fall.
• Court politics.  Love 'em or hate 'em, they're what drives a large chunk of the storyline forward here.  They're the catalyst for Rose's incarceration and they set up so very, very much for book 6.

I really did enjoy this book.  The action is non-stop, the heartache just keeps coming and the scheming is unreal.  I'm already both looking forward to and dreading the next book because although I want to see how it all plays out, I'm not ready for it to end.

Other reviews in this series:
Book 1: Vampire Academy
Book 2: Frostbite
Book 3: Shadow Kiss
Book 4: Blood Promise

More books by Richelle Mead

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