i read vampire academy so you don't have to 🧛 another booktok revival recommendation that...well... 

i mean this in the nicest way possible: your misery is my greatest form of entertainment

The way you are so calm about Dimitri turning into a strigoi when at the times it was the biggest tragedy that ever happened to me 😭💀

Apparently, my 14-year-old brain blocked out the age difference because I loved these books and completely missed Dimitri being a whole grown-ass adult. In my mind, he was like... 19

These books stopped my middle school frenemy and I from feuding because we were the only people we knew who read them all and had to discuss

The movie adaptation was simultaneously the most horrendous thing I ever bore witness to, as well as the most camp 😔✋

I remember watching a movie about this and being like “wow this would have been so much better if the main girls were in love with eachother instead”

omg the absolute chokehold that dimitri and rose's relationship had on 14 year old me is absolutely insane and the fact that i saw no problem with this obviously wrong relationship shows the kind of impact the depictions of these relationships have on the target audience. but to this day it is one of the most ridiculously entertaining series i read as a young teen and i am thoroughly enjoying cari's reaction to this 😂

Any time there's a book series I know I'm not going to like but I still want to know what happens in it, I can always count on Cari to come through.

OH NO. NOT VAMPIRE ACADEMY. i’m not ready to revisit my absolutely unhinged crush on dimitri. fun fact: there’s a perfume gifted to rose in one of these books that i bought as a teenager bc i have no chill, and it smelled like straight grandma. so now whenever i think about these books i just imagine her smelling like that the whole time as all these boys drool over her 😂

This book series is my ride or die, honestly haha! I read it for the first time in high school and definitely connected with Rose, as a shitty, horny teenager myself. I feel like it really shines not as romance or fantasy, but as Young Adult. I loved Rose and Lissa's friendship because I had friendships like that as a kid. The codependency, the uncertainty of whether your friend will be mad at you for taking their secrets to the adults who feel like they're against you, the gross play-by-plays (shown by Rose being in Lissa's mind) of your friends' first sexual experiences, and so on. I reread them during the pandemic and I hated it all lol.

It's funny seeing this series and other older series (Six of Crows, Vampire Academy, Throne of Glass, Shatter Me, etc.) being referred to as Booktok books because these have always been Booktube books to me, despite their resurgence on tiktok. They were popular 8+ years ago when they came out, and they're simply still garnering attention these days. Just a fun observation!

The movie might have been bad, but the casting for Dimitri was on point and they actually got a Russian actor lol :') Also the characters in general looked like what they were described in the books.

I don’t care what anyone says. I love Adrian and I love that these books introduced him. His spin off series feel surprisingly down to earth and I loved it so much.

STOP- i love this series with my whole heart… immediately watching

I am extremely protective of VA. This series was my childhood 🥺

Even if you didn't like Vampire Academy, it's sooo worth it getting through so you can read the spin-off with Sydney and Adrian! They still have my whole heart tbh :')

This series was my Twilight when I was a teenager. 😂 I loved the fact that most of the characters are from Eastern Europe - we rarely have a cool representation in the modern literature/TV shows as we are usually showed as mobsters, war criminals or refugees. That's why I was really obsessed back then. I don't know what my opinion would be now after 10+ years if I picked it up and read it again, but I can't wait to hear yours 🤗

as a newish viewer these videos have RAPIDLY become my favorite way to pass the time away at work, thank you for your sacrifice of sanity 💕

My high school best friend and I were huge fans of this book series. We used to have big debates on being team Dimitri or team Adrien... she's no longer with us..and the last conversation I had with her was about this book. Vampire academy is very bittersweet for me...I had to click this open.

No, i loved vampire academy when i was like 14, please don’t tell me it’s bad. I remember it being so good 😂

Age gap of 7 years would be serious in real life, but paranormal romance craze started with "17 for 100 years" Edward.

I paused my movie and came here to be like “eeeee!! Cari posted again” 😂🤍

VA are lowkey the only books I reread. I listend to the audiobooks like 6 times 😭 The movie? Masterpiece in my mind.

“Why do you read these books if you know you’re going to hate them?” Me, reads the tittle: “so you don’t have to, maybe?” 🤷🏻‍♂️

This book series and the spin-off are definitely my guilty pleasures. They are honestly not the best and I have reread them way too many times and still love them 😭

Omg, reading through all the comments and seeing everyone saying they still hold the series close to their hearts LAHAJAHSJAKK this is great 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 First read in it college actually, I was 17-18. LOVED IT. Didn’t find the relationship between Rose and Dimitri off putting, because HOT MAN, but rereading it now 5 years later 🧍‍♀️uh oh. But still, truly love it. This is great, truly great. FINALLY you’ve read it 😭

I loved Adrian sooo much😭😭😭🥹🥹and his spin off series with Sydney like 😭loved it

This is actually one of the few YA series I actually enjoy. I'm not a huge fan of Rose, but I like the plot. The spin off series is better, in my opinion. Sydney has way more interesting problems and her romance with Adrian made me like Adrian.

I think I loved this book in highschool because it felt very realistic to how teenagers acted. Catty to each other, constantly talking about who was hot and who they'd bang. Yet so few actually did anything 😂 And who didnt want the hot teacher to have a crush on them back! Super juvenile but it really did hit all the beats and tropes. I can definitely see how it's not super vampirey, its weird that they act so humanlike and "cultured" despite looking down on humans lol. I wish they had made more quirks to the vampire daily life 😂

STOP I haven’t even watched the video and I already know you’re going to roast the crap out of this series LOL and although it’s well deserved it still this holds such a special place in my little nostalgic middle school heart nooo😭❤️‍🩹

I remember loving this series when I was 13. I am a turkish woman and it was so interesting to see a turkish vampire. The representation I never know I needed also Adrian was one of my first crushes.

At this point Cari and her viewers have a trauma bond. Like- I feel like I’ve fought in WWIII with you, Cari. It’s fantastic.

PLEASE READ BLOODLINES 😂 I got flashbacks to the Bloodlines books as soon as you mentioned Adrian! I really liked the ship of those books though (the MC is someone you meet in the last or second to last VA book). They had good chemistry. Adrian is the male lead of course.

This used to be my favorite series when I was a teen 😂 Mainly because Rose was the first sassy female character I met back then. In all of the books I read there was either a Bella Swan or a male protagonist 😂 Even back then I didn't ship her with Dimitri though 😅

I have read this series maybe 12 years ago in Russian (my native language) and recently I reread it again in English (it’s like reading this book in the first time, it’s always like that with rereading books in the other language ) and I was surprised how much I enjoyed this serie! I think this is one of the best books in this genre I have read. It’s a little bit cringe, but there is logic in the story. I believe how characters behave, they behave like teenagers!

I was obsessed with this book when I was 14-15 and in my Mortal Instruments era 😂😂 I have no memory of the age gap wtf I knew he was older but 17 and 24???

I was so obsessed with Adrian Ivashkov 🙈 I also really enjoy his spin-off series. Both series hold so much nostalgia for me and I’m probably gonna reread vampire academy when the new german editions release in fall. 😅 (I think Lissa is pronounced with an short I, like Larissa for example)

This book series was precious to me when I was in high school and I still will die for the spin-off series, Bloodlines. However, I re-read VA as an adult and a young teacher, and I physically cannot stomach the idea of this romance anymore 😂😂😂 like I want to still be able to love it but it gives me the creeps hahah. Thank God that Bloodlines is still safe (and it’s better)

I think the name Vasilisa is a reference to the old fairytale "Vasilisa the Beautiful" (or Brave, or Fair), which is considered to be one of the earliest versions of Cinderella. It involves Baba Yaga, a flaming skull, and a living doll. Not sure what the connection is to this book... but it's interesting.

You are such a good friend, lol. I don't know how you do it tbh. I call you my Mystery Science Theater 3000 for books! Thanks for cheering up an evening when I feel like shit. Hope your weekend is stellar!

Haha I was obsessed with these books in high school 😂

The show is actually quite enjoyable! It made me like these characters so much more. I could not get past the first book in this series for the life of me.

i think one of the main reasons for the weird age gap is the fact that this is supposed to be YA, in which most authors tend to make their main characters the age of their target audience, but the love interest the actual age they intened the main characters 😂😂 i think if she had decided to either go totally YA and age down dimitri and made a more interesting school dynamic (like how they actually take classes seriously in Harry Potter), or if she had gone NA and aged up the girls and made it like an adult army-type training and leaned in the paranormal aspect, it wouldnt have read as poorly lol

oh boy i am so ready for this one! This was my series as a teen and I cannot image that it has aged well.

Tbh this is myabsolute fave series & probably because I read during my teens which is the target demographics. I couldn’t get over this series then lol but idk what my opinion will be if I read it now esp because I’ve read more books & my tastes have changed but I’m still sticking with it that it’s my comfort & fave series just because it brought nostalgia and the feelings I had then is still with me. 😅 Sorry I’m an absolute Adrian stan 😂

Omg I looooved vampire academy as a teenager. It was what twilight tried to be at the time😅.

Your book summaries are like a hug to me tbh, so your suffering reading some of these leads to nothing but putting amazing vibes into the world.

I read this book series for the first time when I was about 13 and became obsessed. To an embarrassing extent. I read them over and over again to the point where I still have the majority of the plot points memorized. I have tried rereading them as an adult and I just cannot get through the books. The writing is cringier as an adult, but also the main draw for me as a kid was Romitri, and now I truly cannot get past the age gap at all and therefore when I read it now, I am actively rooting against them. That said, I recently watched the TV show, and I really, really liked it. It completely mixed up the plot between the 6 books in a way that I honestly found more interesting because yes, the first few books are definitely more boring than the final few. And the show is vague about ages, but based on the casting Rose and Dimitri are totally appropriate for each other and incredibly easy to root for. Unfortunately, they did totally nuke Christian's personality, but overall, I think the majority of the show's changes made for a much better and more interesting story. It didn't get renewed for a second season, though, so it is left with a lot of loose threads.

Back when i read this series, long before the movie, which i hated, i loved this entire series so much, it was alot of fun and Rose was such a great character, she goes through the ringer in this. Hope you like, be sure to read them all. Happy Reading❤

VA is one of the first bookseries i've read where the main lead is SUPPOSED to be unlikeable and she grows SO MUCH during the series

Oh my god. My friend was OBSESSED with this series like 2 years ago, and she told me to read it- so I did. And it honestly was not THAT bad, I enjoyed most of it and I even read the spin off books. Would I read it again? No. Did I have the same reading taste 2 years ago? Hell no. Did I enjoy it (somewhat) when I read it? Yes. I'm very excited for this Cari

The spin-off series from these was actually one of my favorite series’ but I always liked the main series less 😂 but I still ate them up in middle/high school and like an occasional reread lol

The first book is so much highschool and then the last book is just politics, it was the first books were I had the world open up like that. It has a lot of what I had found I really like in high fantasy

This series is literally my guilty pleasure read. Its so bad yet so good.

I loved Vampire Academy and the follow up series. Looking back, I see the issues you brought up. I just loved the experience of reading them with friends! I guess it’s a good memory series for me.

I love having these videos on while I do a task. Love the mess of it all and your reactions. So excited for this one though, cause I used to read these back in the day!

Wow I would have never imagined someone reading these books after soooo much time! I have to admit this was one of my favourite series when I was teen, like almost a decade ago 😂. I still cherish it with much love but it aged baaaad. Still, will always be in my little girly teeneger heart ❤

Seeing your struggles brought back a repressed memory from high school of my friend telling me to push through the first few books because the action picks up later on 😂😭 that being said I was absolutely giddy seeing this video pop up, because I did push through and wholeheartedly discuss it with her over lunch period

Never got into this series as a kid, I was busy rereading the same Tamora Pierce fantasy series over and over again lmao

Girl where do you always find the strength to read these series? I really respect you for that because I would not be able to

Teenage me loved these books since twilight was becoming crazy popular and I was one of those teens who hated what was popular if I read it first. VA was my ish but I’m sure if I reread it, I’d hate it. I remember loving Rose because she was like me in attitude and I now see that I was a self absorbed brat as a teen (but who isn’t?) 😂 thank you for suffering through this Cari! I appreciate it so much!

Please don’t stop making videos like this they are genuinely so entertaining

You have to read the spin off though, Adrian was like one of my top fictional crushes lol

My younger self can own that this series was not going to win awards, but it kept me hooked for a long time 😂

This series and the spinoff series are my guilty pleasures 😅

these (and plot summaries) are my FAVOURITE book channel videos of yours so thank you!!!

I'm so glad we can all love different things, I actually am loving this series! 😂

Please please please continue the series!! I need your commentary for the last 3 books ( especially the last one which is my favourite). You make it so fun to revisit teenage me’s favourite series! 😂

I'm sorry but Dimitri's and Rose's is the only teacher-student relationship I will defend until my dying days! I know it's problematic and I do imagine the age difference being smaller when I read it but the chokehold this series has on me is unchallenged. I love Rose, she's one of my favorite MCs, so unhinged and sometimes I hate what she does but I can always understand where she's coming from. And I love her friendship with Lissa and how they both develop over the course of the series. And it's such an easy and fast read, I love Rose's humour. I'm so scared to hear what you think, it's unfathomable to me how ANYONE can not love this series😭😂

you always just make my day better whenever you post! always love the book recs and book/story reactions, especially the special plot summaries

never stop making these! they are my favorite you make !!!

I love your videos, but, ngl, it hurts when it's a series I love so much

I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A BOOKTUBER WHO WOULD REVIEW THIS SERIES AND CARI FINALLY DID!!!!!! THANK GOD!!!! also, your reactions are always hilarious 😂😂😂

I love when you do these kinds of videos! As a person who love bad YA fantasy tropes and all, it's even more fun to listen to you talking about them.

You just keep posting these long videos and it is just amazing! Thank you 🙏🏽

I actually loved this series and the spin-off series Bloodlines. Book 4 is where it is at tho! Those first three are really just the setup but one book 4 happens, EVERYTHING starts going HAM!

I loved those books. Sometimes books that maybe aren’t the best writing are better because it’s pure entertainment and don’t need any deep thoughts.

You've made this rough week so much better 🥰🥰🥰 thanks for being awesome!

i love these types of videos and find myself rewatching them constantly, like this video and the crave video are so ✈️💗 its just hella fun to watch and rewatch

These books were EVERYTHING to me and my friend group in high school. But looking back, as an adult, they do not hold up, at. all. In saying that though, I did read a few books from the spin-off series with Adrian and enjoyed them!

PLEASE do this with the red queen series!!!! its my favorite of all time and its so bad, i think youll have a great time with it.

I love these videos so much it’s so entertaining hearing your little updates

I honestly love your accent, it is always a pleasure to hear you speak, no matter about what. Also the plot adds humor to the experience.

Absolutely adored this series when I was young and I was so bummed when I saw the covers of your books!!!! You haven't lived until you've seen the horror of that soul patch 😂 those books have NOT aged well but still a wonderful blast from the past Love your vids Cari, keep up the beautiful work❤

You're a real one for doing this 😭🥰

Pls don't stop, i love listening to you reading while working

This was one of my favourite book series when I was in high school. Guilty pleasure for sure! 😅 Also, fun fact: The name Vasilisa translates to queen in greek, so I think it matches her perfectly.

this book series is the reason I spent two years trying to learn russian and wanted to go to med school in Novosibirsk... when I saw this pop up my brain registered it as the House of Night series but I loved these books way more than those and twilight combined so I'm excited to see how much my opinion has changed in the 14 years since I first read the books. it was a gift from a friend on my 12th birthday.

My guilty pleasure! These books were my twilight and really got me into reading series. I really loved that it was kind of different from the other ya books I read with the diffrent romance and types of vampires, badass main character and east european charecters. I reread them a few years ago and I have such fond memories and nostalgia I cant really see them as bad for me. I kind of love how people without that suffer through then😅

your videos literally give me sm stress relief- many smiles :)

im thriving off of your energy in this video

I never finished this series, this is my chance to do it through you 😂 thank you for your efforts

Vampire Cademy was hands down my favourite vampire fiction. They had the cool powers of vampires and the scary monsters but none of that boring immortality stick. Made the vampire characters more relatable. I didn't really care about Dimitri and Rose's age difference. I knew in real life it would be hella wrong and not true love but in my head it was like "hehe, he did with a student who's a week away from being 18, on school grounds. How bold."

These are genuinely my favorite kinds of videos from you, I think the passion of talking about something horrible is so raw and full of emotion that it's the perfect form of book review. Please make more of these :3

ive been binging all ur videos the last week and ur sjm videos ARE SO HILARIOUS. also in just a few days of watching you've influenced me sm that i read the ballad of never ever AND MY GOD I CANNOT SURVIVE AFTER THAT ENDING

I was obsessed with the series 15 years ago, but watching you read it has made me wonder why so I’ve just bought it to re read, I’m so excited to see how badly it aged 😂😂😂

Oh my god. I really really hope you read the spin-off series, Bloodlines. I read vampire academy when I was younger and enjoyed it enough to try that one out but I ended up loving that one so much.

Cari I just wanted to say that even though some people might not like these kinds of videos I love them so freaking much. my favorite book reviews are for books that I wouldn't read, these videos are just such a great time :))))

these videos of yours are among my favourite things on the entire internet. that includes not only on youtube, but every streaming service and website you can name.

I'm so glad we all agree we loved this series as teens . One thing i loved about rose back when i read these books was that she was kind of different from other main character out there in YA books . She talked about sex how attractive she found guys and being out there,had a crush on older guy, wasn't nice but sarcastic and badass instead of ur typical modest kind "i will save the world" main character . If u went through ur edgy phase ud love character like rose . Also Most teens are just thinking if a guy is hot or no I mean hormones and all . Also loved the friendship between rose and lisa . Dimitry was played by Danila Kazlovsky who i still think is very hot and casting an actual Russian actor was a nice touch. The vampire lore was interesting to me with royal families different types of vampires . And Lastly we all loved Adrian he has a special place in my heart.