Book Review: Shadow Kiss - Richelle Mead

Shadow Kiss is the 3rd book in the popular Vampire Academy. Rose only has six weeks of field experience left of her 2 year training, before she can become a real guardian. Having spent most of her life guarding her best friend Lissa, who she is also bonded by spirit with, she thinks that it will be a piece of cake. That is, until she finds out that she isn’t going to be guarding Lissa, she’ll be guarding Lissa’s boyfriend, Christian. And to make things worse, Rose isn’t that big a fan of Christian…
She’s also seeing Mason. Yes, Mason, the boy who was killed by a Strigoi before Rose’s own eyes. But he can’t really be there, can he? There’s no such thing as ghosts, is there? She thinks that she might be going crazy, but she can’t tell anyone because they might confirm her suspicions…

And of course, Dimitri is also a big part of her life. Though she has tried and tried, Rose still cannot seem to get rid of the feelings she has for her instructor. Even though she knows that a relationship between two guardians protecting the same Moroi is forbidden, it makes no difference. She can’t seem to shake her feelings, and neither can Dimitri, no matter how hard they try.

With the field experience and Dimitri, Rose thinks she has enough to deal with for the moment. But of course, there is a twist. Just when life is complicated enough, a Strigoi attack sends her life spiralling out of control. Can she fight them off, and can her friends too? What happens if they can’t? And right at the end, just as you think it’s all going to be OK, something is taken from Rose, something that will change the way she looks at life forever.

Shadow Kiss is by far the best book of the series so far. At the end, there is a cliffhanger, and not just a small one. A really really big one. And it’s not good.

Rose learns a lot in this book, and though her life is being thrown around and falling apart, Rose never strays from who she is and what she believes in. These things make her an interesting character to read, one that doesn’t leave you feeling bored with her, or annoyed because she’s whining all the time. Overall, Richelle Mead has hit the nail on the head with this book, and I can only hope her next book will be just as unputdownable as Shadow Kiss was.

I give it 5 Feet!