Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, Mead wasn’t completely lost when she wrote “Blood Promise”… just for the first 65% of it.

I was primed for this book, waiting, wanting, hanging onto a cliff that ended with “Shadow Kiss” but unfortunately instead of barreling full steam ahead, we got lost wandering around Siberia for…well…way to freaking long.  I’m not sure what Mead was going for…maybe she was trying to suck us in to some unforeseen emotional roller-coaster, but all she ended up doing was boring me to tears, not moving me to them.

Yes, the book had its good moments, as a matter of fact the last 20% was pretty fantastic, filled with river side love spats (in that, I would rather jump off a bridge than become a Strigoi way) and the audience was thrown 2…no 3, pretty serious twist.  Its just to bad it took me 3 days worth of mental scolding to get myself to focus long enough to get to them.

Will I read the sequel to “Blood Promise”? Yes, or course, I’m a sucker for teen runaways (which lets face it… with Rose it’s pretty much inevitable at this point that she’s never going to actually finish school)  and heartbroken rich kids with green eyes and extensive Trust Funds.  Do I think Mead set herself up for a great next novel? Yes, like I said, she ENDED the book like a champ, but maybe should heed a few words of advice and get the show on the road.

As for the rest of you happy little Dhampires out there, remember… If you ever plan on visiting Russia…pack a lunch.

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***½~ (3.5/5)

“Vampire Academy”…yes please!

I’m going to sound very conflicted in this review so you are going to have to bear with me, I promise…I do actually have a point and a solidified opinion.

When I first picked up this book I expected nothing more than a quick, vampire laced read, strangely, that is not what I got at all.

The first 30% or so was overwhelming. NOT due to the plot, but due to the characters. It read as if “Richelle Mead” had a truck load of characters she wanted to introduce, but none of the patience required to sit and write them down properly.

There were vampires (duh), but they were broken down into a weird sort of subculture. (great right…something new, something refreshing!) Not really…there were Dhampirs, Strigoi, Moroi, and Guardians; none of which were explained until halfway through the book. All I knew was, Strigoi = Bad, Moroi = weak protected vamps, and Dhampirs (which at first I though was an editing error) = Mini-Guardians in training.

The book opened with an interesting chase scene which sucked me in, and kept me reading (which I see as a good thing) and my interest was sparked, but then the plot just kind of dropped off. I kept getting all of these “We aren’t going to talk about that..remember we promised” references, but there was never anything to back them up. It went on like this for at least 5 chapters. Witty comebacks, Teen Angst, Weird Looks, and Teacher lectures…but nothing to really congeal the passion of that opening sequence.

But then… when I was just about to give up and opt for TV instead of a book, a light bulb flickered on and we finally got the story. The whole story! We got explanations of characters, we got background, we got random dead animals showing up in backpacks, and we were finally…FINALLY told what the hell all this Strigoi-Moroi-Dhampir crap was all about.

Do I think Mead took to long getting to the point? Yes… dear lord, yes! But at the end of the day the book finally picked up the pace and got me hooked. There were bratty jealous girlfriends, crazy bonded mind jumping, rabid dogs, and a psycho terminally ill vamp uncle with a crazy Russian name, all of which were pretty entertaining in their own right.

I will leave you with one tiny disclaimer though…this book touched on a very delicate mental disability that made me a little uneasy at times, but was written with delicacy and was handled properly in the end. (Well done Mead.)

Overall? The book was a promising start to a series, and at least in book two I wont feel so lost. Happy reading and remember…it is unwise to jump on deviously tampered with wooden benches!

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***½~ (3.5/5)