Blood Promise by Richelle Mead Review

Title: Blood Promise
Author: Richelle Mead
Published: August 25th, 2009 by Razorbill
Book rating: 4 stars
Cover rating: 3 stars

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?

***WARNING: Spoilers ahead for previous books in the series***

We leave our lovely Rose when she is headed to her beloved Dimitri's birth place to find him and do what she thinks she needs to do, kill him because he's a strigoi. Now if you think the past books are insane and emotional roller coasters, buckle up because Blood Promise is truly psycho (in a good way). This book had me feeling every emotion from full blown joy to crawl up in a ball and cry sadness. Rose goes through a lot in this book concerning her emotions and relationship with Dimitri. I'm not exactly sure how to say what I feel about what happened without giving any surprises up but I can say my emotions towards Dimitri have definitely changed a bit because of Blood Promise. If you're Team Dimitri before reading this, bring your tissues ladies and remember that he's changed and he isn't himself. Which really didn't help me at all that much but it's worth a try. I thought it was really interesting how Richelle decided to incorporate Lissa in this book because it's difficult when Rose and her aren't in the same place, it was a clever way to use their bond. It was really sad for me seeing how Lissa acted and I had no clue what was going on but when that bomb was dropped I was blown away and totally surprised. I also hate seeing Lissa and Christian so blah towards each other, it's a bunch of crap. Honestly, this book was kind of that depressing installment in a series where everything is wrong but you like it anyways because if our favorite series were always happy and didn't provoke some tears out of us then they probably wouldn't be our favorites. The ending was a complete surprise to me, I didn't see it coming and most of the time I can figure out what's going on. It was bitter sweet for me and I'm hoping redemption is going to happen for the gang soon because I need my HEA.

I think my favorite part of this book was to see Rose interact with so many different people and watch her relationship grow with her Mom. It was really heart warming. Something I've learned from reading this series one after the other is that it's probably smart to read them all and then do mini reviews together (and probably easier.) The Vampire Academy series is definitely a learning experience for me but one that I'm really enjoying! 

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