Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Series: Convenant
Published October 18th 2011 by Spencer Hill Press
Genre: young adult, fantasy, paranormal, mythology, romance
links: Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository
rating: ★★★
synopsis:
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.
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Right off the bat, Half-Blood felt the Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Despite the similarity between the first book of the two series, Aiden was more likeable than Daemon. Other than the Lux series, I’ve seen reviews saying that the Covenant series is very similar to The Vampire Academy which is still in my TBR so I wouldn’t know.
I liked how the beginning started with action scenes, the reader is immediately thrusted into the world without knowing what’s going on. I was confused by what was going on at first but it got better after the fight scene is over and things were explained.
Alex is spunky but she’s always flaring up and instigating violence. Honestly, she needs some serious anger management. Aiden is sweet but he gets boring to read after a while. Seth is an enigma. We find out who is he and how his presence is affecting Alex.
I don’t actively look out for forbidden love trope even though I do enjoy them. Honestly, I didn’t find myself excited for the relationship in this one. The introduction of Seth is making me feel like a potential love triangle is going to happen which turned me off for a relationship between the two main characters.
Although I liked Half-Blood, there’re some problems. Firstly, slut-shaming. Lea is Alex’s nemesis for many years. Just because she wears really tight clothing, Alex deemed her as a slut and never fails to mention how slutty Lea is. Sure, the girl was awful to Alex but Alex didn’t hold the same standard for Caleb (Alex’s best friend) who hooks up with girls all the time. Secondly, I was disappointed by the small amount of Greek culture involved.
I didn’t love Half-Blood but will still continue the series to see where things are going.
“… Sometimes, what you feel is immediate and without rhyme or reason.”
