Blue Bloods (Blue Bloods #1) by Melissa de la Cruz
Description:
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.
They 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. 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 girl from her school is found dead... drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn’t know what to think.
Could those vampire legends really be true? Steeped in vampire lore and set against the heady backdrop of the rich, young, and powerful in the heart of New York City, Blue Bloods will be devoured by Melissa de la Cruz’s legion fans
They 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. 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 girl from her school is found dead... drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn’t know what to think.
Could those vampire legends really be true? Steeped in vampire lore and set against the heady backdrop of the rich, young, and powerful in the heart of New York City, Blue Bloods will be devoured by Melissa de la Cruz’s legion fans
My Thoughts:
The premise of Blue Bloods had me intrigued and I even went out and bought myself a copy - something that I rarely do - but my excitement was soon extinguished. This was not the story I was expecting to be. It was great that we didn't have quite the girl-obsessed-with-a-vampire-boy story that we readers all dread, but it wasn't anything to excite over either.
The terribly disjointed writing style was what put me off the most. It was descriptive but lacked fluidity, jumping between perceptive and dividing dialogues with numerous descriptive passages that went on so long that by the time the other character answered a question, you would have to flip back a few pages to see what it was that they asked in the first place. Also I understand that Melissa de la Cruz obviously wanted to write in a way that came across and "posh" and more "upper class" but it seriously sounded like she put her manuscript through a thesaurus and hoped for the best. Every adjective was an unnecessarily long and complicated word. I had to check my dictionary on several occasions and the word usually just meant beautiful or pretty.
We were also subjected to long, lengthy passages describing the clothing of characters, and this took up almost the entire course of the book. It wouldn't have bothered me as much if the clothing had been described in colours, textures and appearances but no, it was described with brand names. Millions of brand names and nothing else. Gosh, it just went on and on and on! Three quarters of the brands held no meaning to me whatsoever and it simply drove m insane reading brand name after brand name after brand name.
The characters weren't much better. Every single one of them was flat, one-dimensional, boring and just plain old dull. I couldn't give a toss about any of them. The main character was just quirky and weird in that way that you can tell the author is just trying to make them "unique". The supposed "romantic interest" of the book was a complete jerk. The handful of other characters were just, well, terrible. There really isn't any more descriptive way of putting it.
Oh, and another quibble of mine? I have to say that I am sick of author's using weird names for characters. I get that they want to give their characters unique names so that we remember them and I can understand one or two uniquely named characters. But Schuyler? Bliss? Perfection? How many do you want to use and seriously, Perfection? Perfection!? I will never get over that so I guess you did you job right Melissa de la Cruz. Unforgettable character names alright!
Also, this is one of those books that the blurb gives away everything. The word "vampire" isn't even used until nearly 60% into the book and so us readers are stuck waiting for the plot to really "start". It took forever to get to the actual point of admitting that everyone was a vampire (which anyone who has read the blurb already knows) and move the book into a more interesting storyline... which really never happened. It did have a lot of potential to be good but it just didn't use that potential.
Overall, it was great for about five chapters and then faded back into a dull monotone. Pretty disappointing overly. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, vampire lovers or not.
The terribly disjointed writing style was what put me off the most. It was descriptive but lacked fluidity, jumping between perceptive and dividing dialogues with numerous descriptive passages that went on so long that by the time the other character answered a question, you would have to flip back a few pages to see what it was that they asked in the first place. Also I understand that Melissa de la Cruz obviously wanted to write in a way that came across and "posh" and more "upper class" but it seriously sounded like she put her manuscript through a thesaurus and hoped for the best. Every adjective was an unnecessarily long and complicated word. I had to check my dictionary on several occasions and the word usually just meant beautiful or pretty.
We were also subjected to long, lengthy passages describing the clothing of characters, and this took up almost the entire course of the book. It wouldn't have bothered me as much if the clothing had been described in colours, textures and appearances but no, it was described with brand names. Millions of brand names and nothing else. Gosh, it just went on and on and on! Three quarters of the brands held no meaning to me whatsoever and it simply drove m insane reading brand name after brand name after brand name.
The characters weren't much better. Every single one of them was flat, one-dimensional, boring and just plain old dull. I couldn't give a toss about any of them. The main character was just quirky and weird in that way that you can tell the author is just trying to make them "unique". The supposed "romantic interest" of the book was a complete jerk. The handful of other characters were just, well, terrible. There really isn't any more descriptive way of putting it.
Oh, and another quibble of mine? I have to say that I am sick of author's using weird names for characters. I get that they want to give their characters unique names so that we remember them and I can understand one or two uniquely named characters. But Schuyler? Bliss? Perfection? How many do you want to use and seriously, Perfection? Perfection!? I will never get over that so I guess you did you job right Melissa de la Cruz. Unforgettable character names alright!
Also, this is one of those books that the blurb gives away everything. The word "vampire" isn't even used until nearly 60% into the book and so us readers are stuck waiting for the plot to really "start". It took forever to get to the actual point of admitting that everyone was a vampire (which anyone who has read the blurb already knows) and move the book into a more interesting storyline... which really never happened. It did have a lot of potential to be good but it just didn't use that potential.
Overall, it was great for about five chapters and then faded back into a dull monotone. Pretty disappointing overly. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, vampire lovers or not.
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