Half Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Summary (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.

Review:

I had mixed feelings going into this one. So much of the beginning of the book was like Vampire Academy that to me it read a lot more like fan fiction than it did its own story/novel. There are just so many rules, world-building elements, characters, and plot devices that are directly the same. Just swap out vampires for Greek mythology.

However, despite some incredibly obvious similarities I never was able to put the book down. I love Armentrout’s characters. I love how sassy Alex is. I love the whole concept of the appolyon. I love the forbidden romance. And I was beyond terrified of the idea of the half-bloods being turned into mindless, submissive servants if they couldn’t work as protectors.

Also, as the book goes on, more and more differences from Vampire Academy happened. It did eventually become its own story. It will most likely though have a lot of the same world building facts the same through out the whole series. I also feel like I can easily predict where things are going (and where they would go by the end of this book) because of my knowledge of Vampire Academy.

Moving aside from this, there were a lot of fight scenes, training sessions, parties, political discussions, power struggles, violent attacks, and romance. And I guess, no matter the circumstances, these things are always fun to read about. I loved the Lux series and I feel like I have an understanding of how Armentrout’s storytelling goes, and I know I will absolutely have to continue with the series. I can’t wait for a certain 18^th birthday to happen. And I also am dying to see where things go romantically for Alex.

The mixture of Greek mythology, magic, and almost dystopia-oriented physical combat training certainly made this book a quick read. There was a lot of action and a lot of plot. I read it remarkably fast. And I did have a lot of fun reading it. I give it a 7/10. And I look forward to starting book 2. Yay for reading books after the series is completed!