Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, #4) in Nothing But Reading Challenges

Dec 30, 2010 Bonnie rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2009-books, young-adult

And now for a rant by your reviewer: Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling. Love 'em or hate 'em, I think you can blame them for one thing: the gross expansion of young adult novel page counts. I'm not sure if I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure I read an article that publishers used to keep a tight restriction on ya page counts. Think back to the ya novels of yore that we all read and loved (Dealing with Dragons, Robin McKinley's novels, etc). How many of them were FIVE HUNDRED PAGES?!?!? Few, i And now for a rant by your reviewer: Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling. Love 'em or hate 'em, I think you can blame them for one thing: the gross expansion of young adult novel page counts. I'm not sure if I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure I read an article that publishers used to keep a tight restriction on ya page counts. Think back to the ya novels of yore that we all read and loved (Dealing with Dragons, Robin McKinley's novels, etc). How many of them were FIVE HUNDRED PAGES?!?!? Few, if any. Even the largest I can think of only clocked in about 300-400 pages. Then came along Meyer and Rowling with their best-selling doorstoppers and suddenly editors have allowed ya authors to write flabby novels. Especially if they are fantasy/supernatural YA.

Why is this rant included in the review for Blood Promise? Because I think Mead has fallen victim to this problem. Don't get me wrong, the Vampire Academy series is still a guilty pleasure I love indulging. But there is no good reason for this book to be as long as it is. It could be cut by at least a hundred pages and would've benefited considerably by it.

Rose is in Dmitri's hometown in Siberia and every third character seems to be telling her she needs to leave town because she's wasting her life playing domestic. And yet she spends about 150 pages in that town doing some useful things/meeting important characters, but mostly wasting her and the reader's time. It was almost as if the OTHER CHARACTERS were reader avatars telling Mead to get Rose the hell out of dodge. If there had been a page count restriction I guarantee that the Siberian part would've been abbreviated because it really was not that important. It was meandering background, waiting around until the action could build.

Also should've been cut: the flashbacks of Dmitri in happier times. Okay, I get it. Rose is remembering how awesome Dmitri was. But guess what? I've read three books about how awesome Dmitri is. You don't have to convince me! I love Dmitri! I want Rose and Dmitri to be together and neither of them to be evil! Plus, Rose's entire relationship with Dmitri has been chronicled by the series already. They didn't meet until the first book. So all the flashback scenes supposedly take place within the earlier books...but we didn't see them in those books. They are new scenes. If they were so important, why weren't they included in the earlier books? I know books don't show every second of every day of the main character's life, but authors don't usually smack you in the face with that fact. I do not like the conceit of "here's some awesome romantic scenes between Rose and Dmitri that totally happened in the books you read, but I didn't write about until now." What else did we miss between them?

Even though Rose was in Russia, Christian, Lissa and Adrian all play roles in the book, thanks to Adrian's dreamwalking ability and Rose's ability to go inside Lissa's head and see through her eyes. I always enjoy Adrian's appearances, but Lissa's subplot could've been left out. It was entirely separate from Rose's primary mission and was mostly there to give the people back at the Academy something to do. Also how come every time Rose enters Lissa's head, Lissa's always having an important conversation? Why doesn't she sometimes just see Lissa painting her nails or watching TV? Rose must have psychic timing.

And now, why this book still got four stars despite all my complaints: Mead ALWAYS writes an amazing, action-packed climax. Even while I was getting annoyed by the pacing of the first half I knew the last 100 pages or so would be nonstop badassness. And it totally was. It was thrilling, exhilarating and heartbreaking. It was worth reading everything up to that point just to get to the amazing ending. ...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Nairabell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 4-star, teen-ya-paranormal, read-in-2013

St Vladimir's has been attacked and as a result Rose has lost everything she holds dear. She had to choose between Lissa and Dimitri and has now journeyed to Russia to fulfil a promise to Dimitri. As Rose travels she doesn't realise the horrors and revelations in store for her, nor does she realise just how much danger she has left Lissa in and it quickly becomes clear that the risks are greater than ever before.

This is the fourth book in the Vampire Academy series (after Vampire Academy, Frostb St Vladimir's has been attacked and as a result Rose has lost everything she holds dear. She had to choose between Lissa and Dimitri and has now journeyed to Russia to fulfil a promise to Dimitri. As Rose travels she doesn't realise the horrors and revelations in store for her, nor does she realise just how much danger she has left Lissa in and it quickly becomes clear that the risks are greater than ever before.

This is the fourth book in the Vampire Academy series (after Vampire Academy, Frostbite and Shadow Kiss) and if you're new to the series I'd recommend going back and starting with the first book. This review is also likely to contain spoilers for the earlier books.

I was really looking forward to this installment after the dramatic end of the previous book, but I have to say I ended up a little disappointed. The book has a dark and at times dismal feel and is much heavier in subject matter than the previous installments. The storyline is divided between Rose's quest to find Dimitri in Russia and Lissa's school life at St. Vladimir's which means there are two entirely distinct plots at the same time. The plots are well written and both build to dramatic endings, although I felt Rose's dragged at times.

Rose has travelled to Russia in search of Dimitri, essentially in order to kill him. Along the way she is introduced to Sidney and the existence of Alchemists who have existed for hundreds of years to protect humans from vampires (both moroi and strigoi) and their dhampir guardians. Syndey took a lot of getting used to as she is pretty bigoted against non-humans at the start, although I gradually warmed to her and ended up liking her a lot by the end of the book. Rose also meets Dimitri's family and experiences what life is like for dhampir's who choose not to become guardians.

Rose also learns more about spirit users and being shadow kissed and her reunion with Dimitri is dramatic. At times it felt like Rose stayed too long in certain situations and that is where the storyline felt dragged. One thing I loved that I didn't expect to was little flashbacks to Rose and Dimitri at happier times as these helped lighten the overall darkness of the storyline.

Meanwhile back at St. Vladimir's Lissa has befriended new girl Avery on the prompting of the Queen. It's interesting to see her reactions to political manipulation, and also how Lissa chooses to act when Rose isn't around. It quickly becomes clear that rather than being a bad influence, Rose was the only thing helping Lissa make good choices and before long her relationship with Christian is on the rocks and Lissa is putting herself in real danger.

All in all this was an interesting read and I'm looking forward to Spirit Bound.

Plot: 8/10
Characters: 9/10
Ending: 10/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Cover: 7/10

Overall: 42/50 ...more

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Nov 13, 2009 Jessica B rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own, richelle-mead, 2010, vampires, young-adult, favourite-reads

If I could give this book 6 maybe even seven stars out of five I would! I loved it! I stayed up til five in the morning last night just to finish it. I couldn't put it down! I really can't believe I have to wait so long for the next one but I have a feeling its going to be even better then the last one! ...more

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