** spoiler alert ** 
 Characters: Soooo this is going to be another one of those books we disagree on, mostly in terms of characters, and probably better illustrates the how subjective a book-reading experience can be. In Vampire Academy, we have two heroines, best friends Lissa and Rose. Rose is the narrator, but they share the role of protagonist, and we even occasionally get to warp into Lissa's head for a brief spell and experience events from her point of view. It's in our evaluations of the characters that we differ, and it affected both of our reading experiences pretty greatly. 
 Kayla: I totally connected with Rose as a heroine in many different ways. She wasn't a perfect, do-no-wrong character; she was a normal teenage girl. There were times when things were just too much for her, and instead of her slowing down and getting her head in gear to figure out just how she should act, she messes up. This, to me, makes her a flawed, legitimate character. She makes a mistake and has to learn from it to figure her way out of it. I connected in the sense that had I been in her position, I to would have made some of the same decisions she had. Also, though it was irritating occasionally, she was very selfless, which to me is very inspiring. She gives up everything, even her true love, for Lissa. 
 Cynthia: Personally, I almost hated Rose, and it really impacted how I ended up feeling about the book as a whole. I found her bitchy, petty, skanky, irresponsible, stupid, and immature, not to mention a boozer. Even the attempts at making her sarcastic and funny just sort of fell flat for me, because her attitude was so shitty. She embodied essentially everything I dislike about people in general, and teenagers especially. Though she showed some promise of developing out of her petty teenager-ness as the book went on, towards the middle she fell out with Lissa and reverted back almost completely to the way she was at the start of the book. Though I do admit that she was very devoted and selfless where Lissa was concerned, the overwhelming majority of her personality traits were just obnoxious as Hell to me. I couldn't relate to her as a character, but this is probably because her personality and mine are just completely different... 
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