Crosspost: Bloodlines #2 - The Golden Lily

-

Crossposted from Feminist Quill, written January 8, 2016.

Title: The Golden Lily
Author: Richelle Mead
Year of Publication: 2012
Series: Bloodlines (Series sequel to the Vampire Academy series)
#: 2
Goodreads Rating (Avg.): 4.37
Goodreads Rating (Mine): 3.5
Spoilers... and all that.
The golden lily

Plot Description: In the course of her new assignment protecting Jill Mastrano at Palm Springs, Sydney Sage gains new insight into the working of her organization - the Alchemists, about rogue vampire hunters who call themselves grandiose and cultish names, and even goes on a couple dates. Oh, and there's like, fighting and stuff at the end.

Anyway, the progress of Sydney and Adrian's relationship in Golden Lily is wonderful to watch. They start looking out for each other, thinking about each other's mood, doing little things to cheer the other person up. They went from strangers to friends in Bloodlines, and Golden Lily upgraded the S.S. Sydrian to best friendShip.

One of the biggest themes of the Bloodlines series is Sydney's journey from being a brainwashed bigot to someone more sensible - someone capable of thinking rationally. In Golden Lily, she's already seeing the Moroi and dhampirs around her as people, caring about their problems in the human sense rather than as logistical issues standing in the way of the mission. But she's still not completely free of bias - and in this she can't exactly be blamed because it's a bias shared by the rest of the supernatural world (with perhaps the exception of the Keepers). Humans and vampires don't mix, don't date, don't marry, don't interbreed.
    1. He reached out and pulled me to him, one hand on my waist and the other behind my neck. He tipped my head up and lowered his lips to mine. I closed my eyes and melted as my whole body was consumed in that kiss. I was nothing. I was everything. Chills ran over my skin, and fire burned inside me. His body pressed closer to mine, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. His lips were warmer and softer than anything I could have ever imagined, yet fierce and powerful at the same time. Mine responded hungrily, and I tightened my hold on him. His fingers slid down the back of my neck, tracing its shape, and every place they touched was electric.
    1. But perhaps the best part of all was that I, Sydney Katherine Sage, guilty of constantly analyzing the world around me, well, I stopped thinking.
    1. And it was glorious.
    1. At least, it was until I started thinking again.

The pacing is just right, bearing in mind the fact that this series is six books long, and we're still only on the second. Sydney's progress is phenomenal, but not enough. The notion of humans and vampires dating is also explored outside of the Sydrian dynamic - notably with regard to Jill's relationship with the human boy Micah, or Angeline's background as coming from a family of Keepers.

A major factor which has no doubt helped along the process of removing Sydney's bias is her tutelage in the use of human magic under Jaclyn Terwilliger. In the final, climactic scenes of Golden Lily, Sydney uses a number of magical items and spells in the course of a battle, to their ultimate advantage. Once again, the pacing is perfect.

Golden Lily (and by extension the Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series) are a wonderful exercise in perceptions, and how drastically changing perceptions can alter the narrative as we see it. Vampire Academy saw the Moroi world through the eyes of a perceptive dhampir who wasn't afraid to question norms - and on occasion, through the eyes of a privileged Moroi. Bloodlines sees the Moroi world through the eyes of a human who was brought up to fear and hate the supernatural, and that of a Moroi guy battling Spirit induced mental illness. When one adds in the storylines of Mia Rinaldi, or Dimitri's family in Baia, or Angeline of the Keepers, the Vampire Academy universe takes on further depth and meaning, becoming a layered entity.

Without a doubt, Golden Lily is still very much Sydney's story - her quest to discover the truths that her Alchemist bosses are hiding from her, the truths behind the cult of vampire hunters, her continued efforts to protect her little pack of Moroi and dhampir, her study of magic, and yes, her struggle with body image and eating disorders. Adrian's final chapter intervention might have seemed ham handed if it weren't for the fact that his lecture came - at least in my opinion - several books late.
    I handed the gelato back. “I can’t. Not with you watching. It’s too weird. Can I eat it later?”
    “Sure,” he said, returning it to the freezer. “If you’ll really eat it. I know how you are.”
    I crossed my arms as he stood opposite me. “Oh?”
    He fixed me with a disconcertingly hard look. “Maybe everyone else thinks your aversion to food is cute—but not me. I’ve watched you watch Jill. Here’s some tough love: you will never, ever have her body. Ever. It’s impossible. She’s Moroi. You’re human. That’s biology. You have a great one, one that most humans would kill for—and you’d look even better if you put on a little weight. Five pounds would be a good start. Hide the ribs. Get a bigger bra size.”
    “Adrian!” I was aghast. “You… are you out of your mind? You have no right to tell me that! None at all.”
    He scoffed. “I have every right, Sage. I’m your friend, and no one else is going to do it. Besides, I’m the king of unhealthy habits. Do you think I don’t know one when I see it? I don’t know where this came from—your family, too many Moroi, or just your own OCD nature—but I’m telling you, you don’t have to do it.”

And yet, it's also beginning to show us how Bloodlines is as much about Adrian as it is about Sydney. The Vampire Academy series was forever Rose Hathaway's story - there's no doubt about that. Everyone else, Dimitri and Lissa included, were supporting characters. But Golden Lily begins to dip into Adrian's family, his background, his psyche, building the set up for what I would call one of the finest depictions of battling mental illness I've ever read.

Comments

Post a Comment

Leave an opinion!

Popular posts from this blog

Throwback: Waltzing to the Tune of Rhetoric

-
Written September 7, 2010 A dark series of squiggles make their way down and across the page, in that order. Cheap poetry and lame jokes are the order of the day. For once the silence has retreated and is content to watch from the top row of the bleachers. For once there's no raining on the court while the ball's in play. There's a rose that lies at the back of my locker, wilted and fading away. It's a rose I don't expect to see in bloom again. It's a rose I've put aside, but one I cannot bear to throw away. Perhaps I should consign it to the bonfire I've made in my backyard, out of all the relics from the past. Perhaps keeping it in my locker is dangerous, for it might bloom again. Roses such as this one have been known to bloom more beautiful than before, long long after they withered away into nothing more than thin brown sticks and faded and detached petals. And in my excitement, I might just reach out and grab it again, forgetting th...
Read more

Sweet Summer Child: A Love Letter

-
Image
Photo by  Petr Ovralov  on  Unsplash Written December 9, 2016 I am not a gifting person. Years ago, someone suggested I write them something about love as a gift instead. I made many starts, completed nothing. Perhaps happiness doesn't inspire me the way sorrow does. Then last year came the first and only love letter I've ever written. Does it mean more if you write letters? May I? Dearest. When I met you, the only taste I remembered any more was the taste of ashes in my mouth. When I met you, the sun had cracked open, and loss was everywhere.  When I met you, you were a shadow, hidden among shadows, a nervous joke whispered on the winds of my thoughts.  When I met you, I was looking for a friend.  Then I met you, and the sun rose again, whole and healthier than before.  I met you, and the joke turned to undying laughter on my lips.  I met you, and I knew longing again, my soul unable to bear its weight.  I did not know...
Read more

Book Review: State of Fear by Michael Crichton

-
I don't usually have high hopes for action thrillers by white male authors. They're bound to involve super-efficient macho male protagonists, female leads whose greatest selling point is their attractiveness to the male leads, and the a plot that is basically all over the place. But, you know, you don't usually care because your flight is late by three hours and you need to kill time. I picked up State of Fear because I was chilling at my aunt's place and my phone was low on charge. I'd very wisely left my charger at my friend's place, so there wasn't anything else I could do except read. And the collection my uncle had left behind was mainly a bunch of atheist propaganda and also action thrillers by white males. *Snore* As I had recently had someone praise The Lost World  to me, I decided to give Michael Crichton a try. (I outgrew Jackie Collins by the time I was 13.) The book wasn't even engaging enough to prompt me to ask my aunt whether I cou...
Read more