Half-Blood by Jennifer L. ArmentroutSeries: Covenant #1
Published by: Spencer Hill Press on September 20, 2011
Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Vampires
Pages: 281
Source: Purchased
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Rating: ★★★½
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 guess it might be worth noting right off the bat that I have not read Vampire Academy. Everyone always compares these books but I can’t since I haven’t read VA. 😛 There, I’ve said it. Moving on.
Overall, I really liked Half-Blood. It had a really interesting story, I love the whole half blood/pure/Apollyon thing, I like the training and kickass Covenant bit, and the romance was pretty cool. But for me, I think this book was missing the x-factor. It just didn’t wow me and I wasn’t Z0MG SOOO EXCITED to be reading it. It was an enjoyable book, but I think I was hoping for better.
I think my biggest problem with Half-Blood was that I wasn’t crazy about Alex. I felt like I was supposed to relate to her and totally be on her side, but for the most part I just saw her as a reckless girl who makes a lot of stupid decisions. Rather than finding myself agreeing with her and going along with her little rebellions/”I have to take matters into my own hands”, I found myself agreeing with the authority figures who were telling her not to do anything stupid. She was seventeen but sometimes—during her immature moments—I felt like she acted a little younger.
My other problem is with the romance. Don’t get me wrong, Aiden is pretty hot and definitely the strong (so strong) silent type.. but the problem is that their relationship is forbidden… so it never really develops. It makes sense from a plot standpoint, but as a romance addict I was a little disappointed. I wanted to see things get hot and heavy and dangerous and “fuck the rules”—and they almost did—but then everything really pulled back and left me kind of disappointed. In Half-Blood the relationship always remains in the “we can’t do this—it’s not allowed” zone. I’m sure there is a lot more romance to come, so I’ll hang in there, but I wanted more.
But I really loved the overall story. I’m a complete and total sucker for Greek mythology. Also, I feel like such a retard because I thought this book was all about vampires and I had no idea Greek mythology was involved. So that was a hugely pleasant surprise for me! The struggle between pures and half-bloods was pretty awesome (and sad). There are a lot of conflicts and tension and that made for an interesting read. There’s also a big political side to this book, with the Council, decrees, and laws regarding pures/half-blood relationships.. not to mention communication with the gods! I’m definitely curious to see how this develops in later books!
I have heard from a few people that the series gets even better as it goes on, so I will be sticking with it, despite the fact that Half-Blood didn’t quite do it for me. It was still enjoyable and I’m glad I read it, I just thought I’d love it more than I did!
The Verdict
First of all: holy wow that is a gorgeous banner!
Second: I’m kind of sad you read this before the VA series because if you ever do read that series, it will feel like a serious case of déjà-vu. Yeah, it’s THAT similar. Pretty much the same story and plot but with greek gods instead of vampires. I had to force myself to ignore the similarities and then I was able to enjoy the story.
And yes, it does get much better with each book and each book is less and less like VA.
Heheh thanks Nereyda!! Honestly, I probably should have read Vampire Academy first.. but that series is like a billion books long and it scared me. 🙁
Dont worry Ashley! Its not scary lol! Maybe the totally hawt Ryssian Warlord would persuade you to read it?
(Ps: a follow up series comes after the VA novels which is totally worth reading!)
Aww. Sorry that you didn’t like it as much as I did. I can see where you’re coming from though.
Happy reading,
Brandi from Blkosiner’s Book Blog
I wasn’t really excited about book one either because I did read Vampire Academy and there were a lot of similarities. But the series gets so much better. I’m on book 3 and I’m loving it. Here’s my raving review of Pure. You should def keep with the series. http://harleybearbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-pure-by-jennifer-l-armentrout.html
Thanks Melissa! It’s nice to hear that it gets better. I’ll check out your review of Pure!
Thanks for the honest review! I will be starting this series soon so I am always curious to see what others have thought of the books!
Despite my problems with the book, it was still enjoyable! I hope you like it. 🙂
You know, I never thought about it that way. The x-factor in books. It really is important. And I totally know what you mean. I feel in general the x-factor is often missing in Armentrout books. I like the Lux series but always feel like something is missing. I haven’t read this book or series but I am still interested. And I have heard Vampire Academy is amazing, so if they are similar, than I am there.
We should both totally read VA! XD Everyone loves those. But yeah, the x-factor is pretty important to me. Sometimes I like a book, but can’t always pinpoint why it didn’t feel amazing to me… that would be the missing x-factor I guess. I did read Obsidian but I never read Onyx because, again, I wasn’t crazy about the book. But to be honest, the main reason I wasn’t crazy about Obsidian was because I thought Daemon was a jerk face and I never felt that he redeemed himself in the end!
So glad to see you enjoyed this over all in spite of some of the issues you had. Alex annoyed me too with her rash and reckless decisions. I wanted to choke her in Pure, but she gets much better in Deity. Great review, Ashley. 🙂
Eep, how frustrating that she’s bad in Pure too!! I guess I’ll just have to power through it! 😀 Thanks for stopping by!
It will get HOT. Don’t worry about it. 😀
I’m glad you enjoyed this despite the few things you mention, this series definitely gets better as the story progresses (& I don’t think the VA similarities are as obvious as well).
A fab review Ashley! 🙂
I’m really glad to hear that the series gets better! Thanks, Sharon! 😀
The series defiantly gets better and if your looking for the “screw the rules part,” lets just say we get some of that in Deity 😀 Great review!
Hmm, I keep hearing really good things about Deity in particular! 😉 Thanks, Kaina!!!
I’m a serious JLA addict so I’m happy that even though you didn’t love it, you’re gonna stick to the series. I actually really love Alex though and yes, she does rash things, but it fits for her and once you see how she grows throughout the series, it makes it all the better. And yes, Deity is my fave book of the whole series, so I’m hoping that won’t disappoint you.
Also, I read this series before VA, too, and I have to say, although there are similarities, I didn’t consider that a bad thing like some people do. But I have to say, I liked the characters in Covenant better than VA, except Adrian, LOVED him!