Well, Bloodlines was a little bit slow to start for me, but in true Richelle Mead fashion, everything came together excellently in the end. I remember feeling the same way about the whole set up of Vampire Academy so I'm really interested to see how I feel when I read the next book. 
 Sydney was definitely a nice character and for as much as they make fun of her for being uptight in the book, I totally see it but never felt like she was boring. She was still strong and self-assured. 
 Also, I never got the whole Adrian fascination in VA, but upon starting Bloodlines, I'm totally there! I was just blinded by Dimitri that whole series so it was too hard to get on Adrian's side. 
 Looking forward to more! 
 Full review originally posted on The Book Addict's Guide: BLOODLINES is a great spin-off series from Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series (And may I say, you really HAVE to finish VA first as there are some major plot points as spoilers from the last book that you will be missing if you don't). We get to follow the story of Sydney Sage and her duties as an Alchemist, viewing the very anti-vampire feelings that the Alchemists hold dear. It was really interesting to see this side of the story with Sydney bridging the gap between the vamp-hating Alchemists and her duties to protect a Moroi, constantly debating whether she should feel bad for being friendly with Moroi and dhampirs or if maybe it was time for a new wave of acceptance to come through. 
 I actually felt like the story line was just a bit slow for my tastes after the constant rush and excitement of the Vampire Academy series BUT I do remember reading book one of VA and remember that one being slower than all of the other ones that followed it. Maybe it was just that we needed to take book one to really establish some of hte new characters and fit the familiar characters into a new surrounding? I'm not really sure. I was just hoping for a tiny bit more action and maybe we'll see that in book two since we have our series plot line all set up. 
 Guys. GUYS. With BLOODLINES, I'm finally understanding the Adrian-factor! I think in VA I was just too blinded by Dimitri. I mean, how could you not be? So I never really gave Adrian a fair shot and I felt like he always kind of fell to the background. BLOODLINES, however, totally delivered a fun, snarky, and charming Adrian character. I can't wait to see more of him as a prominent character. 
 I think I was just missing a little bit more action from BLOODLINES and felt like some of the plot turns were a little bit predictable whereas with VA, Mead always found a way to knock me off my feet. I'm still really excited for the upcoming books and can't wait to see where else this series goes!