Half-Bloodby Jennifer L Armentrout
Paperback, 281 pages
Published October 18th 2011 by Spencer Hill Press
Premise: Ganked from Goodreads:
The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, 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.
I came to this book full of curiosity about the author. I
see the covers of her books everywhere with enthusiastic reviews and I was
intrigued.
The fun part is, I was not disappointed. Half-Blood starts
with an exciting rush. Daimons are on Alex’s tail and closing in fast. When the
first rush of danger slows to a persistent throb, Aidan shines brilliantly. As
a pure-blood Hematoi, he has his own reasons for being a (darn good) Sentinel
and agrees to train Alex in a last-ditch effort to avoid becoming a mindless
slave. And those training sessions?
Whoa! No one is human, so the
drills are super-fast, brutally hard, and mega-hot. I love the moments of emotional
connection between Aidan and Alex. Any relationship between them is absolutely
forbidden, which makes those tiny connections that more loaded with sparks.
I had a little trouble wrapping my head around the non-human
aspects of these guys, all of ‘em. I think this will clear up the more I read
in the series. (That’s a theory I’m willing to test.) The hours Alex puts into
running, the bruising that covers her body after practicing… I kept pausing to
wonder how she could put her body through that. I’m not a runner, per se, so I
don’t know what it feels like to run hours on end, for example, or work out
“all day”. It sounds like torture! Then
again, it was kind of fun being that buff. So I wanted to believe it.
Aidan is pathetically lacking in flaws. It’s true. He’s a
chiseled god. Literally. All the Hemetoi were made into believable characters with these “perfect”
flaws. Aidan has some past pain he’s dealing with, a overly large sense of
responsibility and maybe a dash of Too-Serious. But those are like… like…
non-flaws, you know what I mean? Like attempts to turn a sculpture into
something pliable while still using granite.
I was almost relieved when whatshisface showed up and threw
a wrench in the convulsing love story. I mean, it’s circling, growing more
intense by the minute and BAM! Wrench.
Nice touch. I have forgotten his (highness's) name, unbelievably, but he's one of the main reasons I'm excited to continue this series.
One more thing bugged me to irritation. Only it’s
spoilerish. So everyone who hasn’t read this book, cover your eyes –n- ears and
blow raspberries loudly.
____________________________________________________
So, I “get” that Alex is young. And she really misses her
mom. So far, so logical. But when she realizes that she’s… you know, what she
is. And then she realizes that she can’t fight those nasty daimons fer nothin’.
You would think that LOGICALLY she would keep… what’s she’s about to become…
away from the daimons. Even if “mom” was one of them. Maybe especially since
mom is one of them!! This was an
issue for me, although I love many of the results. (She looks so... Wow!! afterwards!! Wow.) I just wish I could have
grasped more WHY she felt she could put herself in that position with any hope
of success. ‘Cause from MY point of view it looked like MEGA BAD IDEA for the
entire world, but especially all the pure & half bloods in existence.
____________________________________________________
Ok… spoiler-filled section over. You can open your eyes
again.
Rating: 4 - Too, too fun!! I couldn't put this book down!! Something about Armentrout's writing is downright GRIPPING! Yea, I ran into some bumps, but I read this while on vacation. I'll always remember the swimming resort we were at that day for the frantic reading pace rather than the fun slides! I'm looking forward to more of JLA's books!
About the Author:
Jennifer L. Armentrout Lives in West Virginia. All the rumors you heard about her state aren’t true.
Well, mostly. When she's not hard at work writing, she spends her time, reading, working out, watching zombie movies, and pretending to write.
She is the author of the Covenant Series (Spencer Hill Press), the Lux Series (Entangled Teen), Don't Look Back (Disney/Hyperion) and a yet untitled novel (Disney/Hyperion).
Jennifer also writes adult romance under the pen name J. Lynn
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