Blood Promise by Richelle Mead

#4 in the Vampire Academy Series
Published August 25, 2009 by Razorbill
3 Stars

Goodreads Review
The recent Strigoi attack at St. Vladimir's Academy was the deadliest ever in the school's history, claiming the lives of Moroi students, teachers, and guardians alike. Even worse, the Strigoi took some of their victims with them . . . including Dimitri.

He'd rather die than be one of them, and now Rose must abandon her best friend, Lissa the one she has sworn to protect no matter what and keep the promise Dimitri begged her to make long ago. But with everything at stake, how can she possibly destroy the person she loves most?

Review:   I have to admit that after the awesomeness that was Shadow Kiss my expectations where VERY high for Blood Promise.  Sadly, I was disappointed.  Blood Promise was the only weak point in the entire series and it was very weak for 75% of the book.  With that said, there are still some really great parts of the book (mostly the ending, very awesome) and the introduction of some cool new characters (Sydney is super great as is Abe), but the book as a whole is far below the bar the rest of the series sets.

So, let's review the positives first.  Sydney is introduced in this book, and she becomes a pretty cool character in the rest of the series and in the spin off series Bloodlines.  However, in this book she's not that awesome, it's mostly just a way to put her in Rose's life.  I also really enjoyed the ending.  The final "battle" is exciting and really made me interested in the next book.  I don't want to give any spoilers, but trust me that the last 100ish pages are totally awesome.

However, there are 300 pages of BORING before you get to the awesome.  This book really takes a hit with the separation of Lissa and Rose.  Mead tries to have both their story lines run congruently, but neither are very interesting.  I found myself not really caring about Lissa when Rose wasn't around.  I didn't think the information revealed about spirit was that great, and most of Lissa's plot was just filler to give her something to do while Rose was away.  Also while Rose is in Siberia, we meet a lot of character that (with the exception of Sydney and Abe) serve no purpose to the main storyline and are basically just filler.  Which is very obvious.  Not to mention the way over use of flashbacks.  There was just TMI.  I don't care about the conversations that Rose had with Dimitri a couple months ago, I want to know what they're doing now.  This entire book (with the exception of the last 100ish pages) is just filler that doesn't do anything to push the main story along.

OK, even with all of that said, this is still an enjoyable read, just not as TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME OMG! as the rest of the series.  Don't let this book stop you from the final two books.  They are super excellent, especially Last Sacrifice.  Overall Blood Promise is a bit of a hiccup in an otherwise enthralling series.