Wisdom (My Blood Approves book 4)

Disclaimer: Okay, so I know starting off with reviewing book 4 first is well...backwards. But I just finished reading this yesterday so it's all nice and fresh in my memory. When I have fewer books on my shelves and on my Kindle to read, I'll re-read the first three and then review them too. I'll be nice and give a little bit of background on this series first. And I'll try and review it fairly without giving stuff from the other stories away.

This has to be one of my favorite series. The author, Amanda Hocking, is self published via Amazon and their wonderful invention known as the Kindle. I can spend hours on Amazon browsing their books and finding tons of new ones to read. I have pages of book titles that are "to-read" to prove it. That is how I found this series. It came up as a suggestion when I was looking at another title. I read the synopsis and liked the sound of it (I'm a sucker for YA fantasy romance), read some reviews and everyone had good things to say. So for only $0.99 how could I say no? And yes, you read the pricing right. So I purchased the first book (My Blood Approves) and devoured it in one night. Then over the next week paced myself with the next two (which jump in price to a whopping $2.99). And then I had to wait for this one. But it finally came out and I got to read it right away.

4/5.

Definitely worth the wait. This is 4th installment in the "My Blood Approves" series by Amanda Hocking. But it has just as much romance, action, mystery, thrills, and twists and turns at the first 3. So you may be asking "If it was so good, then why only 4/5?" Well, now that you've asked, I'll tell you why.

I only have a few problems with these books. First of all, I love that she is self published. It makes me feel like she's really been able to stay true to her stories without some publishing company telling her to change her direction to better suit their needs. But that is also a bit of a problem. There are many grammatical errors, misspellings, and misuse of words. I don't think enough to detract from the story for the average reader, but for me, who has this thing about grammar, it started to get annoying. But I pushed through. Next thing I had a problem with was the swearing. She has characters drop the "eff bomb" quite a few times in these books and to me that always seems unnecessary. Some swearing I can look past and it doesn't bother me, but it started getting a little too pervasive for my liking. And lastly, the sex scene. Though it is small and brief (insert immature 'that's what she said' joke here), for me again, unnecessary. I don't like them in YA books. Not that I actually like them in anything, but especially not in YA.

Everything else about this book was pretty enjoyable though. You get to see Bobby, her brother's boyfriend, a lot more and he is so likable (yes, I said brother's boyfriend. They are gay, but not like flaming, but still, if you don't like that don't read these books). For me, Jack started getting annoying in the middle-ish of the third book and really in this book. Maybe it's just because I love Peter. I was totally rooting for him the second Alice saw him in the first book. I had my 'Team Peter' foam finger and jersey on the entire time I was waiting for and reading Wisdom (metaphorically speaking of course). And I loved him in this book, especially in the end. He just comes off as a really great person and character.

There's a what is supposed to be a "big twist", but I had it figured out when we met this other certain character in the third book. Still a good twist, especially when it happens. The ending was satisfactory (except for the whole Peter thing). It pretty much answers everything, but Amanda still left it open just in case she decides to do a 5th book. Until I find out for sure I will be blog stalking her til she gives me answers.