I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It had a lot of rave reviews attached to it, and of course it's going to be a movie, so I figured it had to be good. I've been meaning to pick it up before the movie comes out, but it just kept getting knocked down the TBR list. Finally, with the movie coming out in a few weeks, I made myself -- and the other Book Nerds! -- read it now. 
 Probably because I was expecting such greatness from it, the book actually seemed to start pretty slowly. But as I was reading it and lamenting its slow pace, I was understanding that it is the first book in a series -- so the world had to be built and canon had to be explained. And yes at times I felt it was just a lot of Rose explaining Moroi and Dhampir life, but I gritted my teeth and read on. 
 I'm glad I did! A little more than halfway though, the book started really picking up for me. I really started to get invested in the characters... 
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