Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: Half-Blood
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Series: Covenant #1
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Pages: 281 pages (paperback)
Release Date: September 20th 2011
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary:

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.

Some reviews ruined the book for me! Which sucks! A lot of the reviews mentioned the similarities between this book and Vampire Academy, and whenever I read the book I would instantly think oh! So here’s a little list: 

THE RACE:
PURE-BLOOD- the same thing like MOROI (they even have the ability to control elements) 
Sex with humans and pure bloods to create the other race= HALF-BLOODs,
DAIMONS pretty much STRIGOI
HALF-BLOODS pretty much the same thing as DHAMPIRS

CHARACTERS: 
Alex= Rose …..Alexandria and wanting to be called Alex- Rosemarie wanting to be called Rose.
Aiden= Dimitri 
Caleb= Mason
Seth= Adrian
Lea= Mia. 

OTHER SIMILARITIES: 
School/ training camp away from humans and everyone else, 
The school rules, 
Half-Bloods protecting Pure-Bloods and destroying the Daimons. 
Alex running away from the school. 


I can see how loads of people are saying that this book is a lot like VA- but I don’t really see it as a bad thing, I loved VA and this book was pretty awesome as well. At the very start it felt like I was stuck in one of the Vampire Academy books but someone messed about with the names and terms. Even though I felt like that it wasn’t a bad thing not in my eyes- for me it was like I was visiting St. Vladimir’s Academy. 

The first half was pretty much Vampire Academy retold, and I’m so so glad that it got better halfway through; it gradually got its own series that took on its own world. 

The characters were really awesome! Especially Caleb I loved him I even love his name, he was funny, charming, and loyal to Alex throughout the story which was just so cute. And OH MY GAWD! Is Aiden hot, and there’s a little love triangle going on there with Seth as well! I really loved Seth (I love Aiden, but Seth was just the badass version of him) 

Okay so I don’t like Alex, she’s pretty awesome but I think she was *trying* to be too much like Rose- being sarcastic, funny, stubborn and brave. THE SAME AS ROSE! She was a good character as the narrator and everything but it was just too in your face. I wish that she was a bit more down to earth- that would have made a massive difference for me. I also could not get into her head! The story was realistic (as much as a daimon killing book can be with crazy non-human characters) it was just as if I were watching it happen before me and not being actually part of it. Which sucked! 

The thing I loved best about this book was how forbidden it was- it wasn’t just the danger of dying or being turned into a daimon. Being together was just as if not more dangerous and risky the obstacles Alex had to face.

With the rule saying “No relationships between Half-Bloods and Pure-Bloods what’s so ever!” It made the book so much more interesting, it wasn’t just about killing, the school and everything else but there was also a forbidden rule! ONE THAT MUST BE BROKEN! 

The ending was the most powerful part of the book, all of Alex’s emotions were building up inside of her and at the very end it all explodes all over the place. If the book had a different ending I would never have liked it as much!