Melissa De La Cruz - Blue Bloods - Book 1
Book Description
Schuyler Van Alen is confused about what is happening to her. Her veins are starting to turn blue, and she’s starting to crave raw meat. Soon, her world is thrust into an intricate maze of secret societies and bitter intrigue. Schuyler has never been a part of the trendy crowd at her prestigious New York private school. Now, all of a sudden, Jack Force, the most popular guy in school, is showing an interest in her. And when one of the popular girls is found dead, Schuyler and Jack are determined to get to the bottom of it.
Schuyler wants to find out the secrets of the mysterious Blue Bloods. But is she putting herself in danger? Melissa de la Cruz’s vampire mythology, set against the glitzy backdrop of New York City, is a juicy and intoxicating read.
Review
The blue bloods world has a great mix of two of my favorite paranormal themes: Vampires and Angels. Melissa used an unique idea where angels are cursed to drink blood after they have fallen from heaven, thus creating the vampire myth. She then combined this with high society chick-lit and a love triangle. While I loved the concept the book did not fulfill my expectations for a good YA read.
I couldn’t conceptualize 15-16 year olds drinking and going to clubs. I may have been able to get past this if they were being rebellious but it seemed to be an accepted part of the book that this was ok. Melissa explained this ambivalence away by saying their vampire nature didn’t allow them to feel the effects.
The book was written using a 3rd person narrative style and it switched between different character points of view. I didn’t like this. In general, I don’t like 3rd person narratives as much as 1st person but I’m usually still happy to read them. By switching between the characters I had to read from the perspective of characters that had little to redeem them (namely Mimi). The characters were often superficial, vain and boring.
Schuyler Van Alen, the protagonist, was a bit of a loner, who doesn’t fit in with the other rich, high society kids at her school. Melissa set this character up nicely to captivate readers with her journey to self discovery but failed to deliver. Instead the character lacked consistency and depth, with her personality set out like a production. At the beginning of the book she is rather shy and lacking in confidence then towards the end of the book she has a bit of a personality transplant and is suddenly a lot more confident with at one point modeling half naked.
The mystery element of the book was intriguing with some good plot twists but it took too long to get into it. It was also a little confusing at the beginning because the author periodically placed historical diary entries that were way before their time in terms of the plot.
If I was asked if I would recommend this book I would say no, read something else, but if I was asked if I’d read the next book in the series I’d say yes, but only if I had nothing better to read.
My rating out of 5
2/5
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