Review: Blood Promise by Richelle Mead

ISBN: 9781595143105
Source: Purchased
Series: Vampire Academy #4
Release Date: August 25, 2009
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See reviews for previous books in this series
*Please note that this review may contain spoilers for previous books in the series*

     SYNOPSIS:

DIMITRI'S HEART HAS GONE DARK.
Now Rose must journey to the ends of the earth to find - and kill - her one true love....
Or has the time come to join him?
My heart shattered. My world shattered.You will lose what you value most....It wasn't my life.... It wasn't even Dimitri's life.What you value most.It was his soul.

     REVIEW:

Coming off of the emotional rollercoaster that is Shadow Kiss, book 3, I was really anticipating reading Blood Promise, but I was also pretty nervous on how the rest of the story was going to play out. The entire journey through the books, especially Blood Promise, had an underlying feeling of Rose's pain through everything. Unfortunately for me, though, I had the majority of the story spoiled for me, so nothing was really a total surprise for me. However, it was still nerve wracking not being 100% sure if the horrible things at the end of Shadow Kiss would be resolved by the end of the series and how.

I liked meeting some more new characters, Sydney, Abe, the Belikovs. I think that was my favorite part - branching out. Rose finally really gets to leave St. Vladimir's and I think it did wonders for the story. It opened up the world that much more and allowed us some insight into the Vampire Academy world outside of St. Vladimir's and the Royal Court.

I did, however, come to the conclusion, about halfway through this book, that 6 books is just too long for a series that isn't mind-blowingly amazing. Probably, I'm hardwired for 3-book series and that's it. By book 4, I was dying to know how it all ended already and kind of pushing myself through. Not that I didn't enjoy them all, but then the books started getting to 500-600 pages. I love a good long book, but sheesh. The whole thing was a little too drawn out and I think a lot of it could've been cut out and sped the plot along better.

Unfortunately, this installment had a lot of random little plot holes that really annoyed me. None of them were things that really affected the story - just things that make you go "hey... wait a minute....???" And none of them were ever explained. To me it seemed like straight up lazy writing which really annoyed me because the writing as a whole had gotten so much better since book 1, and then it began regressing.

But, all in all, even when I don't absolutely love one of the books in this series, my favorite thing about them is: Dimitriiiii!! Have I said that before? Even when there were bad, bad things happening, I still loved him. There honestly was no romantic development in Blood Promise, not in the real sense of the word, but it was still perfect... It killed me in so many ways, I just don't know how to describe it...what more can I say?

     RATING: ★★★★

Blood Promise was a bit predictable at times and very drawn out. I enjoyed venturing outside of the standard settings for the Vampire Academy books, but I was anxious to get through this one to move onto the next so I can finally find out how it all goes down. Did I mention that 6 books is just too many for a non-mind-blowing series?

Have you read this far into this series? What did you think of this book in particular? Can't wait to hear from you!

A.