An angsty vampiric love story written by Hino Matsuri. Beautiful Art. Plenty of action. What's more? Hot panels of bishies sucking blood.

Plot/Story
A brief synopsis: Yuuki Cross is a student of Cross Academy and a daughter of the headmaster. But that's not where she's really from. 10 years ago, on a snowy night, Kaname Kuran, a vampire, saved Yuuki from certain death and brought her to Headmaster Cross. 6 years later, Headmaster Cross takes in a boy named Zero, whose family of vampire hunters was slain by vampires. Now in the present, all three attend the academy. Blah blah bah, enter love triangle, blah blah blah, enter complicated stuff from the past.

The story is probably the shakiest aspect of the series, if you look at it in whole. The premise is awesome. I think everyone gets attached to the super angsty vampire love triangle in the beginning, but then the plot spirals downward. Although there's no doubt that consistent cliffhangers and suspenseful fights make the series semi-interesting, starting in the the mid 30s chapters, it's obvious that the author is now just making the plot up as she goes. It's right around there that the "mysteries" originally presented just don't make sense, and the story stops being about a love triangle inside a boarding school and about the existence and destruction of the vampire race!

tl;dr version: Vampire Knight suffers from the disease that hyped shounen manga suffer. Solid, lovable start. Gets popular. Now heads towards the direction of some negative abyssal dark fight of nonsensical doom. Still readable and exciting - just not a very good plot anymore.

Characters
The best characters you will ever find for angst! (except maybe for those in The Flower of Evil).

Overall, characters are pretty standard. You have the girl: hardheaded, eats quite a bit, not afraid of dangers but actually quite weak. You have the two main male leads: One is a cool-headed and often seen as vicious type man - Zero, the tsundere; the other is a charismatic, possessive, but distant vampire: Kaname.

The angst adds a nice tone to the characters, and while they're quite average, they're very likable. (And the males will make you swoon.)

Drawing Style
Beautiful art. Take a look at the covers. Look at the details the eyes have!
The one thing that you will ever have complaints about with this art is - you will later see that every male in the Kuran family looks almost identical. That's it though. Beautiful drawings.

Enjoyment
I enjoyed the first 30 chapters of the series and everything afterward that dealt with cuddling and love developments. I didn't enjoy the sudden developments of a semi-shounen plot with vampire fights and magically-changing weapons. Too sudden of a pace change, although still readable.

Overall - should read this if nothing else
A solid 3/5. The plot isn't solid enough for the series to get a 4, but it was certainly entertaining enough for it to get a 3. Vampire Knight is a popular series. No doubt people will recommend it to you, but just remember: the series isn't a masterpiece. It's nice, exciting in ways, but it's nowhere to say, something like Kare Kano. Think of it as something like Twilight.