{Review} Blood Promise by Richelle Mead

Blood Promise
by Richelle Mead
Series: Vampire Academy #4
Pages: 503
Release Date: August 25, 2009
by Razorbill (an imprint of Penguin)

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Rose Hathaway's life will never be the same.

The recent attack on St. Vladimir's Academy devastated the entire Moroi world. Many are dead. And, for the few victims carried off by Strigoi, their fates are even worse. A rare tattoo now adorns Rose's neck, a mark that says she's killed far too many Strigoi to count. But only one victim matters ... Dimitri Belikov. Rose must now choose one of two very different paths: honoring her life's vow to protect Lissa—her best friend and the last surviving Dragomir princess—or, dropping out of the Academy to strike out on her own and hunt down the man she loves. She'll have to go to the ends of the earth to find Dimitri and keep the promise he begged her to make. But the question is, when the time comes, will he want to be saved?

Now, with everything at stake—and worlds away from St. Vladimir's and her unguarded, vulnerable, and newly rebellious best friend—can Rose find the strength to destroy Dimitri? Or, will she sacrifice herself for a chance at eternal love?

Am I okay?

No.

This book has completely destroyed me and fried my emotions and I am dying a slow death and this series is my obsession now ugh.  This book was just wow.  Not at all what I was expecting, first off.  This book went way out of line with what I thought was going to happen, but I liked it. I was really annoyed with the beginning though because there was a lot of going over the previous books and boring stuff and talking about Sydney’s obsession with cars and love scenes with Dimitri.  [SPOILER: When your favorite fictional dhamper is turned Strigoi you don’t want to read about cars, you want your sexy guardian to come back! ]  So that was annoying, but once the action started, it was like I couldn’t come up for air.  I literally sat huddled in my bean bag all day reading and crying and moaning and dying. (Sing that in Rapunzel’s voice ;P ).  The writing was very smooth and good, and the story line was so well done that I couldn’t believe it.  The staging, while not very smooth at times, was still very good, and everything flowed in the story perfectly.  And there managed to be like no dull moments once the story got going.  As I mentioned in my last review,  the scenes in this book were very well described, [SPOILER: especially the fight scene at the bridge with Dimitri and Rose (that was so EPIC!). ]

[SPOILER: I had a really hard time accepting Dimitri as a Strigoi.  When he brought Rose back to that house and they eventually started kissing and making out and Dimitri would drink her blood, I was so mad.  It was so wrong.  I couldn’t believe that my sweet, caring Dimitri had turned into a monster that essentially treated Rose like a blood whore.  That’s not my Dimitri.  I hate to say it but I was glad when Rose killed him because he wasn’t right.  I have honestly never been so invested in a love interest before.  He was put out of his misery…only he wasn’t. I knew even before I read it at the end of the book because right after he “died” I had a moment of weakness and read the summary of the next book so I knew he wasn’t dead. ]

So many things happened in this book.  I really can’t wrap my head around it all.  One thing that I didn’t like was Lissa.  She was horrible in this book and, [SPOILER: just like Dimitri, ] she was so wrong. [SPOILER: I KNEW something had to be going on with Avery, I just didn’t know what.  That was a huge twist in the book and completely caught me off guard.  The same goes for Abe being Rose’s dad – completely blind-sided by that one! ]

There were just so many things wrong with this book.  Not wrong as in “ruined the book” but wrong as in “morally wrong in the world of Moroi and Strigo”.  I will admit, I hated Rose for a while in this book [SPOILER: when she was kissing and letting Dimitri drink blood from her. ] I was so pissed off at her until I realized Mead was showing Rose’s strength and developing her by showing her so down and then building herself back up into the confident, kick-ass Rose we loved.  I have complete respect for her again.

[SPOILER: I just don’t know how, when Dimitri is turned back, which better freaking happen, they’re going to move past what happened between them when he was Strigoi.  I doesn’t seem like it would be right. ]

Here are my theories for the next book: [SPOILER: I guessed during this one that spirit (Lissa specifically) could turn Strigoi back.  I don’t expect that to happen in the next book, but it better happen by the end.  Lissa and Christian are going to get back together.  I honestly think that Rose is going to take Lissa and go after Victor Dashkov. ]

5 stars

 

 



Richelle Mead's other YA books:

 

Vampire Academy series (6 books)

Bloodlines series (5 and counting books)