dramastef's Full Review: Melissa De La Cruz - Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repo...
What if... the pilgrims that came over on the Mayflower were actually vampires looking to escape the persecution of their homeland?
What if... these vampires always numbered 400 and never truly died, but rather let their ‘shell' expire and became reincarnated into a new shell, their memories awakening in their mid teens, when their blue blood began showing itself?
What if... there was something more powerful than even these seemingly immortal creatures who came back to hunt and devour the Blue Bloods?
The first book in Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series, aptly named Blue Bloods, poses the above problems and tries to spin a tale about the solutions as well, all the while mixing in a bit of rich New York City, spoiled teenage life, a la Gossip Girl.
Schuyler Van Alen, like most of the kids who attend her prestigious private school, is exceptionally wealthy. Unlike the rest of them, however, Schuyler neither flaunts nor cares about the wealth, preferring to wear second hand clothes. This is in direct contrast to another of the elite, Mimi Force, who revels in wearing the most expensive clothes and jewelry and being seen at only the poshest clubs. In between these two contrasts is Bliss Llewellyn. Bliss recently transferred from Texas, is currently fitting in with Mimi's crowd by being Mimi's lap dog, but is truly more like Schuyler's small group of friends.
These three, though very different in nature, are all Blue Bloods descended from the Mayflower. Mimi knows about the truth of Blue Bloods and has embraced her vampiric nature with relish, taking on numerous human familiars. When one of her group is drained of blood, however, and irrevocably killed, the Committee makes the decision to inform all young Blue Bloods of their nature.
Blue Bloods should have been better than it was. I love when I find anything remotely new in the overloaded paranormal genre and Melissa de la Cruz delivers here with the ideas of blue blooded vampires descended from the Mayflower evolving through reincarnation into New York City's richest blue bloods. Even her ideas of other vampires who gain power by consuming the blue blood, turning their blood silver in the process, was interesting. The writing was solid enough, but the whole package just lacked... oomph? Conviction? I'm not exactly sure. I know that I got entirely too sick of reading about Mimi's wardrobe.
The story is told from a third person perspective, weaving in and out of the lives of Mimi (and her twin brother Jack), Bliss and Schuyler. At the beginning of five or six chapters, until Schuyler and Bliss begin searching their own vampiric memories, there appears a journal entry from one of the pilgrim women who hints that they have most definitely not escaped the persecution of their homeland.
The story was just interesting enough in the beginning to keep me reading, and to be fair it did get better near the end, but unless you're already a die hard fan of the YA paranormal genre, I can't recommend this book. I have read reviews that the second book in the series, Masquerade, is better than this one, so I'll probably add it to my library queue and with low expectations, who knows? Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Schuyler Van Alen begins to wonder if the legends of vampires are really true. When she turns 15, she starts to crave raw food and is having flashback...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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