Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
3.5 stars
Summary: When the Mayflower set sail in 1620, it carried on board the men and women who would shape America: Miles Standish; John Alden; Constance Hopkins. But some among the Pilgrims were not pure of heart; they were not escaping religious persecution. Indeed, they were not even human. They were vampires.The vampires assimilated quickly into the New World. Rising to levels of enormous power, wealth, and influence, they were the celebrated blue bloods of American society. The Blue Bloods vowed that their immortal status would remain a closely guarded secret. And they kept that secret for centuries. But now, in New York City, the secret is seeping out. Schuyler Van Alen is a sophomore at a prestigious private school. Suddenly, when she turns fifteen, there is a visible mosaic of blue veins on her arm. She starts to crave raw foodand she is having flashbacks to ancient times. Then a girl from her school is found dead . . . drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesnt know what to think. Could those vampire legends really be true?
My thoughts: I've been meaning to read this one since it came out. I'm so behind - bad YA librarian! My first impression was that it was Gossip Girl with vampires, and basically it was - lots of fashion name-dropping, swanky NYC locations, beautiful young people... But it was also a creative vampire story. De la Cruz plays with the old legends - "Blue Bloods" are fallen angels, there are only 400 souls that keep getting reincarnated, they don't kill humans, just perform a sexy, sacred ritual to ensure they have blood to drink... And the whole thing is run by The Committee, which is disguised as a charity committee that basically runs the city. I really liked this bit of tongue-in-cheekness about high society blue bloods actually being Blue Bloods - it explained the hierarchy of high society quite well, really.
The Mayflower connection is brought in through flashbacks and pages from Catherine Carver's diary. Someone not too familiar with US history (like me) might have a bit of a problem with this, but it's fairly well explained. It's actually a tricky way to slip in a history lesson - I'm sure if I hadn't known about the Roanoke colony, I'd be researching it to find out what happened.
I'm glad I finally read this one. It was a good, quick read with an intriguing premise. I think I'll be checking out the sequel, Masquerade.
1 comment:
The book was truly amazing. I couldn't pry my attention from the book for a minute, and when it was time for bed, the mere words provoked me to read on. Questions continued to pop up in my head??? Blue Blood? Murder??? Silver Blood?? Cruz takes a simple plot and twist and turns it with her bare hands, making a hell of a vampire book. Who would've knew? Although Twilight was the ultimate vampire book, it was so predictable, where as to Blue Bloods, keep surprising me. Cordelia's death? Dylan's Death?? But then, as stated in Masquerade(second book), Dylan is clearly alive, but not well. The only thing my mind is craving for is Revelations, the last book in the series. Will Schuyler become the savior? Is Dylan really alive? Will Allegra stay comatose? All can hope that Melissa De La Cruz's words feed our cravings.
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