The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Title : The Golden LilyAuthor : Richelle Mead
Genre : Fantasy
Published Date : June 12nd 2012
Publisher : Razorbill
Pages : 418
Source : Bought
Rating : ✿✿✿✿✿
From Goodreads :
Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.
Sydney would love to go to college, but instead, she’s been sent into hiding at a posh boarding school in Palm Springs, California–tasked with protecting Moroi princess Jill Dragomir from assassins who want to throw the Moroi court into civil war. Formerly in disgrace, Sydney is now praised for her loyalty and obedience, and held up as the model of an exemplary Alchemist.
But the closer she grows to Jill, Eddie, and especially Adrian, the more she finds herself questioning her age–old Alchemist beliefs, her idea of family, and the sense of what it means to truly belong. Her world becomes even more complicated when magical experiments show Sydney may hold the key to prevent becoming Strigoi—the fiercest vampires, the ones who don’t die. But it’s her fear of being just that—special, magical, powerful—that scares her more than anything. Equally daunting is her new romance with Brayden, a cute, brainy guy who seems to be her match in every way. Yet, as perfect as he seems, Sydney finds herself being drawn to someone else—someone forbidden to her.
When a shocking secret threatens to tear the vampire world apart, Sydney’s loyalties are suddenly tested more than ever before. She wonders how she's supposed to strike a balance between the principles and dogmas she's been taught, and what her instincts are now telling her.
Should she trust the Alchemists—or her heart?
Get a Copy : [AMAZON] | [BARNES&NOBLE] | [INDIEBOUND] | [THE BOOK DEPOSITORY]
Review
The previous book of this series, "Bloodlines", was interesting enough for me. So when this book hit the shelves, I got my hand on it like almost instantly.
This book told us about Sidney's life past her Strigoi-fighting experience, how she cope up with her nightmare, with her struggle, and how she kept up with her lies that seemed to covered every inched of her life. When her everyday life become more natural, and that vampire become the part that fits nicely with her life, her reasonable belief struggle with her totally unreasonable feeling. And when her trusted friends betrayed her for a mere title, she must choose which side she would join.
"In my chest, my own heart was breaking. On my cheek, the lily reminded me who I was."
—Sidney
Adrian was, in my opinion, the one that had developed most. While he was just a heartbroken charmer on the first book, he had became a struggling man that readers could sympathize with at the end, which made him seemed more blood and flesh. And the whole romance thing with him and Sidney was so sweet yet heart-wrenching at the same time.
Eddie was protective always, and I love how he show his chivalrous side when fighting for Jill's attention and all. Jill, on the other hand, had became stronger and less all-that-innocent-and-knows-nothing kind of girl.
While keeping Richelle Mead's fast paced plot trademark, I think it was better at Bloodlines, with The Golden Lily being much more predictable and all. There was too much hint here and there that made reader knew the culprit early. But what made it better was the lessened plot sagging. And that added a whole lot points!
I also love the nice cliffhanger on the ending. It made readers dying to read the next book, but satisfied them as well.
One thing I'm not quite fond of was when Sidney was over thinking some trivial things, such as sugars, calories, and all those girly things. It added some characteristic and uniqueness at first, but when they were everywhere, it became slightly annoying.
Overall, this book have quite an interesting character and the plot was quite good too. If you love YA Fantasy, Richelle Mead, and oh-so-sweet 'aww-ie' romance, this book is totally worth reading.
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6 comments
I've been wanting to read this for so long! Love your review!
ReplyDeleteHello! Read some of your posts. I really like your blog. I'm now a new Follower, and I'm going to post a link to your blogs on my blog after taking a look at all of the other blogs you have.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, it's really good :)
Peace,
LadyBug
http://english-written-portairt.blogspot.pt)
Hi! Thanks soo much :D
DeleteI've checked out your blog too, it's so cute and nice :) And I've followed it :D
I LOVE this new series! When I started reading I didn't put it down until I finished it!! I love the romance between Sydney and Adrian. I know they will get together. They have to! I loved Adrian in The Vampire Academy series. But I also loved Dimitri with Rose. I love it when the author will bring characters from the original series to the spinoff series. Especially the most favorite characters! I just cannot wait until book 3 to find out what happens next! I love Richelle Mead's books!!
ReplyDeleteYep, me too! This book is so good :D
DeleteToo bad The Indigo Spell comes out in 2013. I truly cannot wait that long!
Thanks for the feedback by the way :D
I think I liked Golden Lily more than Bloodlines and probably the series as a whole more than VA but we'll see how Indigo Spell is...I can't wait to read it. I agree that Sydney definitely over thinks things but I loved the ending. Can't wait to see what happens!!
ReplyDeleteA comment from readers make us happy, really!
This is also an award-free zone, but thanks for your consideration!