Vampire Academy
Richelle Mead
A poorly written magic school book
Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy is a story about vampires (who call themselves Moroi), and their dhampire (half-vampire) guardians. In particular, it is about Lissa Dragomir, a Moroi royal princess, and her apprentice guardian, Rose Hathaway.
Ever since Harry Potter we have been treated to a succession of books about children in Magic Schools. Rick Riordan's Percy and the Olympians and James Islington's Hierarchy come to mind. Those are, in my opinion, two of the better examples of the category. Vampire Academy is not.
The story is told in the first person by Rose. Rose is a rather awful person: a snob, violent, and without ethical boundaries. (Her treatment of fellow-student Mia was especially obnoxious.) But by far Rose's biggest fault, the unforgiveable one, is that she is long-winded.
Now, I suppose we have all heard the maxim "Show, don't tell.". It can be fetishized and too ardently followed. Many times when reading a difficult-to-follow story I have had the thought, "You know, a little straightforward telling would not go amiss here." That was not a problem with our first-person narrator Rose.
Rose has never heard that she should "Show, not tell," or if she has heard it she doesn't care to follow it or doesn't know how. The world in which Vampire Academy is set is complicated, and Rose's expositions of its intricacies are some of the clumsiest I can remember reading in urban fantasy. She has no notion of showing what any character thinks and feels by any technique other than telling you. She doesn't know that you respect your reader by letting them figure things out for themselves. By the time I reached the end of the book I had had enough of Rose for a lifetime.
You have already guessed by now that I have no intention of reading further in this series.