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 I read this book with the lovely Kristin from My Friends Are Fiction & Octavia from Read. Sleep. Repeat. 
 Mild spoilers ahead--you have been warned! 
 Rating: 2.5 Stars 
 Vampire Academy is the first book in the NY Times bestselling series and it's a literary phenomenon. I have been hearing about this book even before I had a Goodreads account and the VA fandom is enormous. Not to mention the fact that there's a Vampire Academy movie coming out on Valentine's Day 2014. I decided to finally give into the hype recently and jump on the Vampire Academy bandwagon. I know I'm late to the whole world of Richelle Mead, but I know I'll definitely be returning to read more of Dmitiri and Rose's adventures. I did enjoy Vampire Academy, but I just have to say that it didn't nearly live up to the hype. 
 I'm not sure what I expected from VA, but I expected a whole lot more from Mead. Instead of getting an insane paranormal novel, I was treated to a novel about typical high school drama. Mead definitely handled the high school cliches better than a lot of other authors, but I'm still extremely disappointed. I didn't get all of the feels, after finishing VA, I didn't feel the need to rant how amazing it was. Frankly when I finished VA, it was just okay I'm die and that's it. 
 The characters in VA weren't nearly as amazing as I have been hearing from Goodreads friends. Honestly I didn't care for Dmitri much at all and I did NOT like the whole romance with him and Rose. The whole age gap and student-teacher relationship didn't work for me at all. There was nothing special about Dmitri, I'm sorry guys but I just had to say it. I surprisingly liked Rose, despite the fact that so many of my friends have said she's extremely annoying. I didn't find Rose annoying at all and I loved her snarky, kick-ass attitude. Rose is by far, the best character in VA, even better than Dmitri. There I said it! Lissa was nothing special and I felt rather indifferent towards her. I feel like I didn't see nearly enough of the students in St. Vladimir's Academy to comment on them, but I felt like their presence was really lacking in the novel. The other students were a bit on the undeveloped side and they really weren't too distinct in my mind. 
 Plotwise, not much really goes on in the entire novel and most of the novel is literally dialogue and world-building. Some of the dialogue is really humorous, but it didn't really excuse the incomplete plot. The world building of Vampire Academy is really in-depth as I would have expected from Richelle Mead. The mythology behind the dhampirs, the Strigoi, and Moroi was extremely interesting to read, but I felt as if the mythology was too infodumpy. It was a bit overwhelming to have all this mythology thrown at me and I don't think I really got a chance to properly digest it all. Vampire Academy ended right when the novel started to get really interesting; the ending was executed wonderfully and I wish the rest of the book was just as entertaining. 
 I will be continuing this series because I have heard that future books are a lot better. I'm not sure if this book was mediocre because most of this book helped set up what Rose and St. Vladimir's Academy is like. I just hope that the rest of this series isn't as disappointing, because I really wanted to love this series. Please, don't let me down! Vampire Academy wasn't a bad novel by any standards, it was just not all what I expected.