Book Review: Blue Bloods.

Title: Blue Bloods.
Author: Melissa De La Cruz.
Series: Yes, #1.
Pages: 302.
Source: Purchased.
Publisher: Hyperion.
Published Date: March 27, 2007.
Summary:

"When the Mayflower set sail in 1620, it carried on board the men and women who would shape America: Miles Standish; John Alden; Constance Hopkins. But some among the Pilgrims were not pure of heart; they were not escaping religious persecution. Indeed, they were not even human. They were vampires.The vampires assimilated quickly into the New World. Rising to levels of enormous power, wealth, and influence, they were the celebrated blue bloods of American society. 

The Blue Bloods vowed that their immortal status would remain a closely guarded secret. And they kept that secret for centuries. But now, in New York City, the secret is seeping out. Schuyler Van Alen is a sophomore at a prestigious private school. She prefers baggy, vintage clothes instead of the Prada and pearls worn by her classmates, and she lives with her reclusive grandmother in a dilapated mansion. Schuyler is a loner...and happy that way. Suddenly, when she turns fifteen, there is a visible mosaic of blue veins on her arm. She starts to crave raw food and she is having flashbacks to ancient times. Then a popular girl from her school is found dead... drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn't know what to think, but she wants to find out the secrets the Blue Bloods are keeping. But is she herself in danger?"

Links:
Goodreads.
Barnes and Noble.

Cover:

I don't really have an opinion for this cover, its okay. Nothing special, but it does represent the idea of vampires and glamour in the story.

My Thoughts:

When it comes to the Blue Bloods series, I've read reviews galore. Some good and some bad. But what pulled me in and made me push those bad reviews to the side, was the interesting synopsis on the back of the book. I'm not one for history, but I thought it was incredibly interesting that Melissa De La Cruz incorporated the Mayflower and the settlers coming from across the sea to her twist of a vampire story.

Many claimed this to be another "Twilight" kind of book, but I was hoping that it would be a more...believable modern day story of vampires. And I did get a little bit of that while reading Blue Bloods.

Blue Bloods takes place in Manhattan, New York and revolves around wealthy high school teenagers. The main character is named Schulyer, who experiencing weird things, for example her veins turning bright blue underneath her pale skin.

There are two different types of Blue Bloods; immortal and "recycled" found in this story. While the immortal live forever, like we are used to hearing about, the recycled ones are exactly that recycled. They live a life, and before that life ends that keep a single drop of blood, which holds all of their memories and thoughts. And when they are reborn, around the age of sixteen they start to change and regain all their memories of their previous lives.

Schuyler is afraid that she might be a Blue Blood herself and be turning into a vampire.

Blue Bloods are angels who have fallen from heaven, and this is why they hope to regain their angelic statuses, by doing good and right things.

When a student is murdered, many Blue Bloods are suspicious that someone is after them instead, and that precautions should be taken for their protection.They fear that Silver Bloods are out for them and Schuyler is thrown in the middle of this entire thing, while going to school, and modeling jeans.

It has taken me so long to finally digest this book, and be able to review it. I just needed time to take it all in, and really reflect on various points throughout the story that I enjoyed or didn't enjoy. And this is what I came up with.

I can say that I will be continuing the series, I liked the entire vampire worlds (the immortal and recycled Blue Bloods, the Silver Bloods, etc). I also liked that she incorporated the true starting point of vampires, and that she tied that in with the pioneers and settlers of the new world. Besides that there are also a lot of lose ends that haven't been tied up yet, that are keeping me in suspense for the second book.

But I can also say, there were quite a few points that I found unnecessary, and just...weird. One thing, would include Schuyler and the way she all of sudden gets this jeans modeling deal.. She doesn't want to model, she has no modeling experience, but all of a sudden out of however many girls are trying out, the lady looking for models, basically throws this opportunity at her feet. Riiight, that happens all the time...

Overall I found the book and characters to be okay. I wasn't really able to relate to Schuyler or any of the other characters featured in the book. But I have high hopes that once the story really gets into the swing of things that there will be tons of character development, and that I will grow to love a few of them.