Book Review – The Ruby Circle

Title: The Ruby Circle [Bloodlines 6]

Author: Richelle Mead

Genre: Young Adult, Supernatural

Length: 348

Rating: 4 Star

Book Series Reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Related Book Series: Vampire Academy

 

Description/Synopsis:

THEY WILL BE TESTED

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.

Their forbidden romance exposed, Sydney and Adrian find themselves facing the wrath of both the Alchemists and the Moroi in this electrifying conclusion to Richelle Mead’s bestselling Bloodlines series.

When the life of someone they both love is put on the line, Sydney risks everything to hunt down a deadly former nemesis. Meanwhile, she and Adrian becomes enmeshed in a puzzle that could hold the key to a shocking secret about spirit magic, a secret that could shake the entire Moroi world and alter their lives forever.

Don’t miss their unforgettable final chapter…

LOVE WILL CONQUER ALL

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Lets not beat around the bush. This book has been out for ages so if you are reading this I think its because you have read it and want to know my opinion. If this is not so though there will be spoilers in this review. Its the last one so I have to talk about everything that happens in the book because I wont get a chance to talk about it in the next one because there isn’t a next one. If you want a non spoilery review here you go: I really loved this book and feel like it was a good enough ending, though not perfect because the book was very rushed. The Vampire Academy series was much better but if you are fans of that I would give this series a go even if it doesn’t have the perfect last book.

I am a bit sad that I felt like I could not end this series off on a 5 star. I really liked this book and I feel satisfied enough with it to let this spin off series finish here, but this book had just one serious flaw that I just could not move past and it prevent the top rating.

It was just too damn short.

With the Vampire Academy series each of the books progressively got bigger and bigger and the final book was just huge. The Bloodlines books didn’t grow in size and I feel this let the story down in this last book because it simply didn’t have enough time/pages to get all the story out without in feeling rushed like this book did. I kind of feel like Mead got to this last book, looked at her notes and the storylines/plots that have come up throughout the series and have not yet concluded and gone “Oh shit” and then just tried to jam them all into the one short book. This made the book feel rushed, have some things end just a little too easily, and leave some bigger questions just left hanging. Neil, Declan, The Alchemists, the cure, how things ended up for Lissa and Jill with Court and the laws they were facing. Could this possibly be because there are more spin offs to come? I suppose will see. I feel as though Mead might want to take a bit of a break first before she dives back in.

Besides that though I really liked the book. I did predict who had taken Jill at the end of the last book, and while I am glad something kind of happened with the whole Jill plotline in the story, I felt the overall series was more about Adrian and Sydney than hiding Jill because she was in danger.

Adrian was a bit of an idiot again in this book, but he gets over it eventually. I can understand why he was so dumb (kind of) and when he was stupidly dumb he suffered for it. I felt bad for him but at least he learnt from it this time. He and Sydney were having some issues in this book but they still had some really cute moments. Sydney took a step back from the badass she gained in the last book, but she is allowed to mellow after all she went through.

I loved all the parts with Declan and I wish that his part in the series hadn’t of been so small. There is so much that can be explored here and I hope that we get more spin offs so that we get some answers. I actually kind of hope that we get more from Rose and Lissa if we get more books because they are both in such different places compared to the first series. Jill and Eddie are pretty good candidates for more perspectives though. We got a fair bit of Rose and Dimitri in this book and I just love it when they make an appearance. Their parts are always good. I am more than a little sad that the world is ending. We don’t know if there will be more I really hope there will be.

I think I will leave this review here because really there was just so much to talk about because the book was so fast paced and action packed. I have already talked about a bit of it, and I don;t want to potentially ruin anyone’s experience with this final book. I recommend this book to anyone who has been reading the series or has read VA. Just know going in that this book really should have been much longer, or some issues should have jut ended in earlier books.  There were many mushy moments and just generally happy parts that made me swell with joy. Anyone who has read it should come and discuss it with me.

 

Till Next Time…