Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy #6)
by Richelle Mead
Summary: They come first.
My vision was growing dimmer, the blackness and ghosts closing in. I swore it was like I could hear Robert whispering in my ear: The world of the dead won't give you up a second time. Just before the light completely vanished, I saw Dimitri's face join Lissa's. I wanted to smile. I decided then that if the two people I loved most were safe, I could leave this world.
The dead could finally have me.
Rose Hathaway has always played by her own rules. She broke the law when she ran away from St. Vladimir's Academy with her best friend and last surviving Dragomir princess, Lissa. She broke the law when she fell in love with her gorgeous, off-limits instructor, Dimitri. And she dared to defy Queen Tatiana, leader of the Moroi world, risking her life and reputation to protect generations of dhampir guardians to come.
Now the law has finally caught up with Rose - for a crime she didn't even commit. She's in prison for the highest offense imaginable: the assassination of a monarch. She'll need help from both Dimitri and Adrian to find the one living person who can stall her execution and force the Moroi elite to acknowledge a shocking new candidate for the royal throne: Vasilisa Dragomir.
But the clock on Rose's life is running out. Rose knows in her heart the world of the dead wants her back...and this time she is truly out of second chances. The big question is, when your whole life is about saving others, who will save you?
Join Rose, Dimitri, Adrian, and Lissa in Last Sacrifice, the epic, unforgettable finale to Richelle Mead's international #1 bestselling Vampire Academy series.
Source: I borrowed a copy of this book for Kindle from my local library.
Review:
The first thing I thought upon finishing Last Sacrifice (other than being sad that it was over) was that Rose finally did grow into an amazing person. Honestly, I don’t know if I could ever reread the series and go back to young, reckless, immature Rose. I love her too much now at the end of the series. I am shocked by how much I respect her compared to my thoughts about her in the beginning of the series.
Last Sacrifice was an awesome read and a wonderful finale to the Vampire Academy series. It was full of it’s own suspense and adventure, but it also provided lots of growth and closure for the series as a whole. Things happened that I never would have seen coming, so it was a little shocking to read, but altogether satisfying. Rose made some pretty crazy choices and did a lot of growing up. She had some tough decisions to make and while all of her adventures in the series have been crazy and difficult, I felt like the ones in Last Sacrifice were the most important for her.
For the record, I never picked a “team” for this series. I feel like Rose made the right decision for her. I get why people love Dimitri and I get why they love Adrian, but Rose’s conclusions at the end of series made a lot of sense and I can’t argue with that. I can’t give anything else away regarding that, but I’m happy with the end result because of the reasons Rose gave.
Now that I’m finished with the series, I can see why it’s such a popular series and a favorite of so many people. Vampire Academy is a great series! It took a couple of books for me to truly get invested in the series. Some people may wonder why I continued reading if I didn’t like the first book, but I knew that a series that was so highly recommended by people with similar reading tastes to my own had to be good. And they were all right. It is great. The awesomeness of the last 3 books make it worth every minute I spent reading book 1. And the way that I feel about the series as a whole made it worth it and I think I feel even more amazed by the end of it because of how different the characters were in the beginning.
While the series is nothing like Harry Potter and I would never try and compare or equate them with one another, I feel like there’s a parallel with growth that helps me describe how I feel. A lot of HP fans grew with Harry and talk about growing up with him and and it’s a major part of our generation. The characters started out so young and were molded by their adventures as they grew into adults. The Vampire Academy series had less actual growth, but more personal growth as Rose changed from a bratty teenager to a respectable adult. I feel the same overall way, though, that I witnessed something amazing as the characters grew and changed and I got to see the events that helped shape them into who they are in the end.
Last Sacrifice was a thrilling conclusion to the Vampire Academy series. Loose ends were tied up for the most part, but a few were left open, which I liked. I'm always skeptical of every conflict being completely closed at the ends of series. Life doesn't really work that way. I’m pretty happy that the Bloodlines series exists, though, so I can spend more time with some of the characters and hopefully explore other conflicts.
I definitely recommend this series. It’s a must read. I can’t stress enough how much better the series gets with each book!
Labels: Review, sequel, YA
