Name: Blood promise
ISBN: 9781595141989

Richelle Mead

Just days before graduating from St. Vladimir's Academy, guardian-in-training Rose travels to Siberia to drive a stake into the heart of the boy she loves, the monstrous vampire Dimitri.

a Vampire Academy novel

Blood promise

Anna Ureta

Continuing my journey through the Vampire Academy series I’ve realized not all books can be great. Well, no that’s a lie, the Harry Potter series was pretty good in my opinion, even though there was a lot of filler. Point being, series have filler books and Blood Promise is definitely this series’ filler book.
 
The Strigoi attack on St. Vladimir’s left a dark cloud over the school, one cloud especially dark was hanging over Rose Hathaway’s head. Her mentor, Dimitri, was turned into a Strigoi, and after the first few months of getting to know him they were both confident enough to say that they’d rather be dead than be a Strigoi. Making it her personal mission, Rose set out to find him and kill him herself. But deciding to leave the school is one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do because it meant leaving her best friend Lissa without knowing whether or not she’d come back. While on this road Rose struggles with herself, as she ponders whether or not when the time came, would she actually be able to kill her mentor and the love of her life?
 
This book starts off right after the end of Shadow Kiss, Rose is leaving the school to go find Dimitri and presumably kill him, releasing him from his Strigoi body and setting his soul free blah blah blah. It all sounds amazing and exciting when you think about it, but the actual journey itself wasn’t what I expected. I found Blood Promise very long, and dull, and just fillery. I’m not going to sugar-coat it, I’m sorry but NOTHING HAPPENED UNTIL THE LAST 150 PAGES. There, I guess you could consider that a spoiler? Maybe?
 
There were some really interesting things that happened, interesting characters and IMPORTANT characters that we meet that I’m not going to tell you about. What was most disappointing was the lack of Strigoi in this book too, at least until the last 150 pages.
 
There’s always a reason for things to happen, and the people Rose meets will ultimately help her through her quest/journey to finding Dimitri, but I still think everything that happened just took WAY TOO LONG. A lot of the time I was sitting there going, “Yeah I get it…” or parts where I was hoping something bad would happen or at least something half-exciting. The overall tone of the book was very muted and droll, and the fact I had to read 350 pages of nothing to get to the action was a bit unnerving.
 
I think one of the things I disliked most about this book was the obvious LACK OF ADRIAN AND DIMITRI! OMG! It was so boring without them! I even missed Christian and his snarky sarcasm! Rose is pretty much on her own most of the book. She’s surrounded by people but it’s no one she really knows like a close friend or ally. I get that the whole point of the book was to find Dimitri but it could have been a little more interesting… She didn’t need to be so mean to Adrian too….and I liked him.
 
Let’s continue on the list of THINGS THAT IRKED AKI ABOUT BLOOD PROMISE.
Dimitri, who I loved, SOOOOO MUCH, was actually REALLY FREAKING ANNOYING in this book. I get that he’s a Strigoi now, so he’s all undead and evil and wants to drink people’s blood, but seriously, he was really annoying. Being a Strigoi changed all his morals, it made practically everything sexy about him just vanish, and he became this…really annoying almost whiny little boy who spouted about saying HIS RELIGION WAS THE BEST or however he was preaching that Strigoi life was better. I probably would have punched him myself, or at least called him out on being boring and annoying. I applaud Rose though, that girl has serious patience… DAMMIT DIMITRI why are you evil!?
 
On the plus side we do get to meet Rose’s dad which is super exciting! That’s hopefully gonna be important later, right?! Honestly, what’s the point…of getting together with a dhampir, having a baby and not seeing them again? It makes sense if you’re a Royal Moroi and you’re GOING to have a royal family, but I just…I can’t….WHAT IS THE POINT!? All these dhampir children should be in touch with their parents, even if they’re only half-children. I’m just not okay with child neglect…Bad form Rose’s dad…bad form.
 
Blood Promise was definitely not my favourite book in the series, it was long, it dragged on, and there just wasn’t enough to keep me interested. Hopefully Spirit Bound is an improvement, and then onto Last Sacrifice. I don’t think I’ll be moving onto the spin-off series though… By then I think it’ll be time to move back onto a romance novel.
 
3/5 Hearts of Love

Check out the rest of my reviews at http://www.akiikomorireading.com

Blood promise emotionally drained me! Loved it

My least favorite so far. That is all you should know :)

Annabella

Gisela Ayala 

Book Rant: 

Still entertaining but not my favorite book out of the ones I have read yet. I might be biased though because I don't really feel the connection between Rose and a certain someone and I just kind of need him to go away. BUT I did appreciate Rose's growth in this book. I already love her (besides the love interest) and finding out how she is connected to a certain someone blew my mind! I'm either a dum dum or I honestly didn't see that coming. I would really like to see more interactions with her and Abe in the future.

Aditi

** spoiler alert **
           The worst one so far. Literally nothing happens, it's just 500 pages of filler. The new characters introduced were interesting but Rose is so insufferable and self involved you don't actually get to know any of them. And now that they've served their purpose they won't be making a reappearance. Lissa's side of the story was so stupid. Rose still just dips in and out of her mind as she pleases with no regard to Lissa's feelings on the matter. Avery is possibly the worst "villain" if she can be called that. There was no need for the Lissa Christian break up. I hope they get back together at the start of the next book, I'm only reading this for them at this point.

marilynn

Phillippa Hinds 

** spoiler alert **
           Least favourite book of the series so far. It was just too sad, I mean meeting the Belikova's was sad and there wasn't much happiness in the book, plus I really don't like Strigoi Dimitri. I like to think of the Romitri couple as undefeatable and this book just shattered that. We do meet Rose's dad for the first time however, but it wasn't a very good meeting as she doesn't know its her father. The relationship and connections Rose makes in this book are very sweet and long lasting. My favourite character from this book is either Yeva or Sydney because they are just so straight forward and you can see the development of the characters throughout the books. 

Overall i didn't like the book. i have re read the series now 4 times and only read this book once, when i initially read the book series the first time through.

Marissa Luzio 

This book picks up with Rose in Moscow, trying to find and kill her Strigoi-turned lover, Dimitri. On the way, after the attack on St. Vlad's and the journey to Dimitri she becomes a killing machine, adorning the mark that signifies she's killed too many Strigoi to count. Damn Rose, who knew she'd get to this huh? 

She leaves Lissa, which we thought we'd never see her do, and Lissa was just as shocked as we were. Rose has it all planned out though, with the connection she shares with Lissa, she frequently checks up, trusting Christian to take care of her. Adrian helps her financially and she seems set. Except for the fact she's on her way to kill her lover and actually ends up at his family's home. That's tough like wow.

I will admit, this wasn't my favourite book out of the series, it seemed dull at points and just dragged on. Obviously for plot and story sake I kept pulling through and finally finished it, but it was hard. Rose and Dimitri reconnect and lets just say Strigoi Dimitri is scary. Holy crappers. Rose has to find the power and strength in her heart to finally kill him once and for all, can she do it? Who knows, Rose is capable of anything. 

IF you liked this review, check out more on my blog!
http://keepcalmandloveboooks.blogspot.ca

Sophie Hutchings

OMG OMG OMG OMG.... This was my reaction to 90% of this book. Don't worry no spoilers below.... 

Either this or the third book were my favourite, this book was just perfection. Rose spends this whole book in Russia, she meets a lovely family who you will love, Sydney who is the main character in spin off in "bloodline" & a moroi who is very snake like and lastly a beautiful couple who have a lot in common with lissa and rose. 

This book is none stop, I couldn't put it down. Stop reading this review and go buy it now!!!!!!!

Jessica Guht

I enjoyed this look into the real world of vampires, outside of the school setting.

Sheila

WHAT THE WHAT OH DEAR GOD SO MANY FEEEEEEEELLLLSSSSSSSSS HAVE LOST ABILITY TO CAN 

DIMITRIIIIIIIIIII WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

ALSO NOW 100% ON THE ADRIAN TRAIN LIKE DAYUM EMPHASIS ON THE YUM

Olivera Mitić

14/8/16

Review to come when I come back from holiday.

Edit
7/5/2016

So...apparently I was way too lazy to actually write a review once I got back from holiday, but I did stumble upon my review notes and I thought I would change that. 

First of all, the change of setting was something that really worked well for me. The introduction of Dimitri's family was awesome, even though the characterization wasn't the best. Abe, on the other hand, was and A+ character and I want to see more of him in the following installments (or just generally more of Rose's parents). Sydney was interesting, but not developed enough. 

Lissa's parts in these book seemed pointless and tropy. It felt as if they were only there as fillers and as a way for Mead to stay close to her original series setting. As a character, Lissa seems even more weak and pathetic with each book. I never liked her one bit, but it culminated in Blood Promise. Once again, it was hard to believe in Rose and Lissa's friendship, since it's just generally neglected throughout the whole series. 

Avery was the biggest plot device ever and was only in the book so that Lissa would seem less useless. 

The last few scenes were great, but come one, which one of us actually thought that (view spoiler)[ Dimitri was truly dead? Not me anyways.  (hide spoiler)] After all of that though, Rose was way too chipper and happy, which was rather unrealistic in my opinion. 

Anyways, this installment is by far my favourite of the series and the only one I would like to get back to at one point. I'm quite aware that this is an unpopular opinion and that Blood Promise is the one where the series starts to go downhill for many people, but it sat well with me for some reason.

laura

this series is so addicting! mUST get my hands on the next one!

Blood promise a Vampire Academy novel

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