Half-Blood review

Description: 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.

My thoughts: When I first started reading Half-Blood, I was half excited half scared of the similarities I saw between Half-Blood and Vampire Academy. Especially because in the past I've read stories that reminded me so much of others books that I couldn't separate the latter story from the former ones. Thankfully Half-Blood reminded me of Vampire Academy in some good ways but overall stood out as its own story.

This is not to say that I never saw daimons as Strigoi, Alex as Rose, or Aiden as Dimitri. But the more I read the more I was able to separate the two stories, while still admiring the positive similarities between the characters in both books. And eventually I stopped comparing Alex and Aiden to Rose and Dimitri and started liking them for their own unique qualities. Through Alex's background story which showed the source of her strength and vulnerability, it was easy to connect with her. And Aiden had these confident and wise aspects to him that had me deeming him as a top literary crush.

And although I enjoyed the characters, my favorite thing about this new series was that it wasn’t just (if at all) about a girl falling in love with a guy. There's a situation/problem that is revealed in the middle of the story that gives the book more meaning and makes it understandable why the story needs to be told out in a series instead of just one book.

So at this point I just really want to know what's happening in regards to the main dilemma of the story which started to become a serious problem near the end of Half-Blood, because this series has the potential to go from really good to great.

Additional note: I really love that the book’s setting was in North Carolina. It’s not often that a character from a YA book can even make ANY kind of reference to the state I call home.