Day 1: Best book you read last year

Assalamualaikum

Beep beep!
Day 1: Best book I read last year

So, let's see... How many books had I read last year (and the year before)? I lost count -_- And I don't usually note down the date I start and finish a book. Goodreads has been helping me keeping track of my reading progress, but I just start using it this year.

Uh okay, I'm gonna go with The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead. It's the third book in the Bloodlines series. A little bit about Bloodlines - it centers on Sydney Sage's life, as an Alchemist, a witch and a rebel. You may not know her, but she was present in the Vampire Academy series where she helped Rose or something (I don't remember).

Bloodlines series also tells a lot about Adrian Ivashkov, the most appropriate love interest for Rose Hathaway, OBVIOUSLY (please note that I hate Dimitri Belikov so shut up), but Rose turned Adrian down for Belikov. Adrian had to bear the outcome after that, being heartbroken and all, which was so annoying. Still, I don't blame Rose. It's Dimitri all along.

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.

In the aftermath of a forbidden moment that rocked Sydney to her core, she finds herself struggling to draw the line between her Alchemist teachings and what her heart is urging her to do.

Then she meets alluring, rebellious Marcus Finch--a former Alchemist who escaped against all odds, and is now on the run. Marcus wants to teach Sydney the secrets he claims the Alchemists are hiding from her. But as he pushes her to rebel against the people who raised her, Sydney finds that breaking free is harder than she thought.

There is an old and mysterious magic rooted deeply within her. And as she searches for an evil magic user targeting powerful young witches, she realizes that her only hope is to embrace her magical blood--or else she might be next.

I think the book was amazing. And as far as my mind can reach the previous year, this book was one of the beautiful written books. Or, maybe the strained romance between Sydney and Adrian (oh dammit spoiler!), with Sydney being all paranoid about her beliefs (one of them: no human should have any relationship with Moroi or dhampir).

Sydney totally shut Adrian out, and was clueless about her feelings for him.

Apart from that, I love their 'family'. They went to Palm Springs to hide Jill, Queen Lissa Dragomir's younger sister because in order for Lissa to remain on the throne, she needed another living family member, that was why Jill was brought to a summer-like place where Moroi and Strigoi were unlikely to be there, so Jill wouldn't be in danger of getting killed. (some Moroi tended to kill Jill because they wanted the throne)

An Alchemist, like Sydney, was needed so that she could control the situation; the humans mustn't know about Moroi, Strigoi or dhampir. So, she had to supervise the vampires living among humans.

As a part of the mission, Sydney became Sydney Melbourne, and the others Jill Melbourne, Adrian Melbourne and Eddie Melbourne (dhampir guardian). Sydney was close to Eddie, they actually were like real siblings and I love their talks and brother-and-sister relationship.

Whilst playing a 'nanny' to both Moroi and Eddie and also Angeline (a newcomer, a dhampir who loved creating scenes, troublesome irresponsible but could be relied on in battle), Sydney found out the truth about her lifetime belief of the Alchemists. She even practiced magic with her teacher (who was a witch). Some time later, she decided to find Marcus, a famous rebel who secretly tried to recruit more rebels from the Alchemists (because hell yeah, the Alchemists were all bossy and they could be torturous and cold-hearted at the same time).

There was also another friend of Sydney, Trey, oh I loooooooove him (he was in love with Angeline) who understood Sydney like no other. He sort of match-made Sydney with a brainiac guy just like Sydney and from there it started to be funny (and Sydney realized her love was not for that B-guy - sorry I forget his name xD).

Sydney was portrayed to be a strong woman (she always is anyway) in this third book. There were two major events that she somehow settled and she also had to deal with some of her real family problems.

I don't know what else to describe but I remembered reading this book for a couple of days non-stop because I clearly couldn't put it down -_- At the time I realized I was looking forward for Sydney to admit her feelings for Adrian (Adrian had somehow expressed his to her, but oh well we all know how Sydney was).

And I remember Jill's words for Sydney, "They talk, you act, Sydney," stating that Sydney was a super-hyper-active young lady who would do anything to demand the truth of her Alchemists organization, and the truth of her own powers. She totally went against all of the Alchemists beliefs by consulting an on-the-run rebel, Marcus, and practicing magic because she was a badass that wayyyy! She was so brave, she did everything all by herself (without being caught!).

And the ending of this book was so perfect that I finally could live in peace after I finished reading it. (there's a chance that I'm lying here but you wouldn't know unless you read the book :3)

I didn't think I would come to love the series because I had my experience with Vampire Academy, so I thought Mead would write something similar to the VA series. But as it turns out, Bloodlines is really well-written. There's not much nonsense as there was in VA, anyway.

(Don't mind me, I'm probably still despising Rose's love choice)

p/s: I am on the verge of falling apart because I just finished reading Allegiant this evening