Review: The Indigo Spell

The Indigo Spell (Bloodlines #3), by Richelle Mead. The GoodReads summary:

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’m sure you’ve heard me say this before, but I’m not very good at reviewing subsequent books in a series. I always feel like I’ve already said everything I have to say about the series in the previous reviews, and unless the newest installment is either much better or much worse than the others, I always struggle to find anything different to say. So I’m going to do my best, but no promises.

Basically, yep, I still like this series. I still like the characters, and I appreciate how Sydney and Adrian both continue to develop, though Sydney has to struggle more to make her strides than Adrian does in this book. I felt like Adrian was actually rather un-Adrian-like this time around—no tantrums, no spirit-user craziness, not much drinking or smoking—and that’s a good thing, but at the same time, I feel a little like, “When did that happen?” I don’t remember him being quite so mature at the end of the last book, so I wasn’t quite sure where this new and improved Adrian came from. Still, I admired his patience and unselfishness (two words I never thought I’d use to describe him) with Sydney, and how they both support and understand each other.

As in the second book, this one started off a little slow as the author tried to catch us up on what had been happening in the previous two books. But again like the second book, once the story got going, I got sucked in. I don’t know what it is about Mead’s books, but something in them makes me inhale them in giant gulps. Anyway, the story in “The Indigo Spell” was more focused on the Alchemists than the previous two books were. In those, obviously the Alchemists played a major part, but the main problems and conflicts of the stories involved the Moroi. Here, there was actually very little about the Moroi—Jill, Eddie, and Angeline barely show up at all, in fact. Rather, it’s all about Sydney discovering additional information about the Alchemists, beginning to seriously explore the world of witch’s magic, and figuring out what to do about Adrian. As a result, the plot isn’t super pulse pounding or anything, but it still manages to be intriguing.

Overall, I’m not sure that these Bloodlines books are quite as addicting as The Vampire Academy series, but still, I like them a lot. So far, each new installment has been consistently good, though “The Indigo Spell” is probably the slowest so far since it centers almost entirely on finding out new information rather than action. Nevertheless, it was totally enjoyable, and I definitely intend to read this series through to the end (however many books that ends up being).

Rating: 4 / 5

Other Bloodlines books:
Bloodlines
The Golden Lily