Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead

Hi there!
Even though this is probably the busiest month of the whole school year, I feel suddenly extremely productive review-writing wise.
Well, I won't complain. I have a shit ton of reviews to work off. Let's get down to business.


BASICS

Title: Spirit Bound
Series: Vampire Academy, book number 5
Author: Richelle Mead
Release Date: May 18th 2010
Publisher: Penguin Razorbill
ISBN: 1595142509
Number of Pages: 489
Genre: Paranormal, Young Adult, Romance

SUMMARY

I won't spoiler you!
But there will be spoilers for the previous book in the next section. Be warned.

MY OPINION

A while before I even read the third book in the series (if I recall correctly) I've read a review on one of the pervious VA books by the Goodreads user Emily May. She wrote that many people have told her that the series' quality will decrease from the forth book on.
Caught up in the awesomeness of the second book, I naturally didn't believe her.
Well.
One is always wiser at the end.
This book was a huge disappointment

I couldn't understand this sudden drop in quality.
My main problem was our beloved main character Rose Hathaway. She was terribly frustrating.
Her actions in ths book are so unplanned, naive and childish. Nothing like her in the previous books where she gained, not directly wisdom, but maturity.
In Spirit Bound she definitely goes back in her character development.

Another thing that really bothered me, was how she treated Adrian. It started which him giving her all the money to fund her trip to Siberia to hunt for Dimitri. This deal meant for Rose: giving Adrian a real chance.
She accepted but she didn't mean it. That can be seen throughout book five (and book six but I'll come to that some other time).

Those who followed my updates on Goodreads already know which example I'll use to show my dislike for the way Rose is treating Adrian.
About 30% in the story, Rose tells Adrian after he follows her to Las Vegas: "There are boundaries you've got to respect!"
Look who's talking, Rose. Using your "boyfriend's" money to break a convicted criminal (who tortured your best friend!) out of prison and then going to Vegas with said criminal without telling your boyfriend, all in order to get back your first boyfriend, isn't really regarded as 'respecting the boundaries either'.
Just sayin', Rose.

I really felt sorry for Adrian.
He loves her and tries so hard to convince her to give him a chance  but whenever someone just thinks 'Dimitri', Rose conveniently forgets about him.

Rose doesn't even start to think about the consequences of her actions! There's a) the heartbroken Adrian or b) the runaway criminal. Rose seems to don't give a shit.

The main thing that made Rose and the whole book so frustrating for me is that Rose is a Teller.
She tells us all about her best traits, how much she loves Dimitri, how deep their mutual love is and how selfless she is. But she or rather Richelle Mead never shows us all those things.
And that makes Rose the most unreliable narrator of the whole series.

She says she values her friends but she doesn't actually give a shit about Eddie and that his whole future is at stake for her stupidity. Or about Lissa's mental state when she forces her to help Victor getting out of prison.
Rose just demands more and more

When I took notes for this review, I wrote down 'I hope the next book will be on the same level of quality as the first three were' and I can tell you, no. It wasn't as bad as Spirit Bound but it wasn't as good as the first three books in the series either. But I'll talk about that another time.

RATING

2 out of 5 stars