Friday, January 15, 2010

Blue Bloods - Melissa De La Cruz

Schuyler Van Alen has never fit in at Duchesne, her prestigious New York City private school. She prefers baggy, vintage clothes to the Prada and pearls worn by her classmates. But when she turns fifteen, Schuyler's life changes dramatically. The death of a popular schoolmate haunts her in unexpected ways. And strangest of all, Jack Force, the most popular boy in school, is showing a sudden interest in her.
Once an outcast, Schuyler is thrust into Manhattan's most exclusive social circle. Its members are the powerful, the wealthy, and--as Schuyler soon discovers--the unhuman. They are Blue Bloods, an ancient group of vampires, and for centuries they've been invincible. Now something is preying on this elite group, and Schuyler wants to find out the truth. But is she the most vulnerable of them all?

Title: Blue Bloods
Author: Melissa De La Cruz
Genre: Young Adult, Vampire Fiction
Publisher: Hyperion Paperbacks
My Rating: 3/5

I'm on the fence with this one. I really enjoyed the "vampire world" that Melissa has created. I really thought it was a unique spin on it, and I liked how it gave another variable for the lost colony of Roanoke. I liked Schuyler and Oliver, and Bliss... I'm on the fence about some of the other characters though. If the characters had been fleshed out more, they would have been excellent, but with all of the world building going on I can see why she (Melissa) focused on that more so than on the individual characters. The high-roller lifestyle of course comes with designer clothing, but it bogged the actual story down. I was kept busy reading about designer apparel (which I could care less about) and all I wanted was to read more about what was happening, who was the bad guy, how could they stop him/her, what are Blue Bloods really? etc etc. (You get the picture.) :) However... the further I got into this book, the more I enjoyed it, I was immersed in it, and then bam! That was the last page... and I'm really curious to see what's going to happen next. Luckily, I have a copy of Masquerade from the library. (I'm already 45 pages into it.) All in all, this was a good story, though there were parts that you could get bogged down in, but stick with it, it gets better, and leaves you wanting more! (Okay, so maybe as I'm typing this, I'm not as on the fence as I thought I was...) :).


This book counts toward the 2010 100+ Reading Challenge over at J. Kaye's book blog.

1 comment:

Christina T said...

I really like this series but I agree with you about the fashion. It does tend to pull you out of the story and there is way too much detail paid to the clothes worn by the characters-even more than what I usually find in period historical fiction where gowns are typically described in detail. I think the name-dropping has to do with the author's fascination with fashion.

I hope you stick with the series. Blue Bloods: Revelations is probably the best of the books so far and has quite the ending.