Half Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout
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GoodReads Summary:
The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, information pills and the children of two Hematoi pure bloods have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals–well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures. Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden. Unfortunately, she’s crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn’t her biggest problem–staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.
My Review:
I absolutely love the Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout. I do. I remember feeling really apprehension about buying it because I didn’t like the cover, and some people had said it was too romantic and mushy but I ended up really liking, and I think a big part of that was the fact that the main character, Katy, was a book blogger, and Daemon was a hot alien who reminded me of Jace Wayland. But I do enjoy the series, and I eagerly await the final installment.
That being said, I’ve had quite a few people bugging me to read her other series, the Covenant series, for awhile now, some of them a little more demanding than others (I’m looking at you, Erin and Eilidh). I read a lot of books os it was on my “to-read” list but I just couldn’t make time for it. Then yesterday, for some reason, even though I have a huge stack of books to read, I decided to pick up the first in the series, Half Blood.
I finished it last night.
I think I’m already way more in love with this series than I am with the Lux series. and I do genuinely love that series. But oh my god, Half Blood absolutely blew me away. There’s something different that Jennifer Armentrout captures in these novels that I just don’t think comes across in Lux, and its just a great book. I immediately went to my friend, and was like “I’m broke, help me find the others” and she lent me the second one on Kindle, which I am EAGERLY waiting to read once I’m done reviewing it all for you.
The main character, Alexandria who goes by Alex, is just a seriously awesome character. She is so, excuse the language, but badass. She’s a fighter, she has a tough attitude and she’s stubborn as all hell. She has to prove that she is worth to stay at the Covenant and she has to work hard to prove that, but her temper and her stubbornness gets in the way of that sometimes and it makes you love her as a character. I hate perfect characters that always tend to do the right thing, and even when they do the wrong thing, its because they were trying to do the right thing. Alex is a very real character, and she has her own doubts and ideas and she gets distracted and she flies off the handle and she doesn’t always do the right thing, and I absolutely love that. I love that you’re so in her head that you feel her confidences and her doubts and her emotions. She feels so real to you.
I love all the other characters as well. Seth is pretty interesting and I’m curious to see how the interactions between him and Alex continue in the future of the books. I can’t say much more than that about him because it would be wicked spoiler like. I adore Aidan, because well, you’re totally supposed because he’s super hot, and a badass fighter and Alex is mad about him, and yeah, now I’m mad about him. Caleb is a fun character, who I wish I had as my best friend. There are so many characters, and even if you only see them for so long, you know them. That’s a mark of Jennifer L. Armentrout. She creates these massive worlds but she builds all the characters to seem real, and she does it so quickly.
I really enjoyed the story, and really whipped through it. Its a very different view of the whole demigod idea, which is a popular choice of story telling in the past few years but its interesting to see the different approaches that you get and I really like this one. I think its interesting how there’s almost a hierarchy based on if you’re a pure blood or a half blood, and even when you’re a half blood, whether you’re a servant or a Sentinel. Its so interesting which makes me believe that there’s going to be way more to this story than just Alex’s struggles but perhaps the struggle between the different classes of demigods. It should be super interesting. Now, I’m going to urge all of you to go read this book, so I can stop writing this review and go read the second one!
Rating:
5 out of 5 stars
You didn’t find the similarities to Vampire Academy distracting? I thought it was an interesting take but I had to reread VA before I could even think of continuing the series
You know, I did notice that, just having finished Vampire Academy a few weeks. however, I’m already reading book number two and the differences now are making me feel better about the similarities of the first book.
Oh they definitely are their own stories. I suspect VA might have sparked off an idea that grew into itself. She does have a lovely writing style that made it very easy to read the Lux series. It was definitely a nice change from all the dystopias and vampires around lately (which I enjoy immensely, only I read so many books a year some of them start to blur into a terrible mess).
I think that’s maybe why I DID notice a VA comparison to it because I just finished the third book about a week or two ago, and I read about 150-200 books a year, and they do sort of start to mesh together. So it was obvious to me. But maybe more so because I read them so close together. I really love Greek mythology and I think there is starting to be more and more written about it and so I like when its something different and impresses me and Half Blood really did that.