Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: Half-Blood (Covenant #1)
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Release Date: October 18, 2011
Source: Purchased
Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository

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 of 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 total 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.

Despite hearing nothing but rave reviews about Half-Blood, I kept putting off reading it. But then I picked it up off my shelf and didn't put it back down until I was finished reading it. And then boy did I realize what everyone was talking about.

Alexandria Andros has been living a normal life for the past few years. But one day she comes home to find that her mother has been killed by daimons. So Alex goes on the run to escape the daimons, but soon enough Sentinels catch up with her and drag her back to the Covenant. That's the last thing Alex wants but now that her mother is dead she doesn't have much of a choice. Now back at the Covenant in company of other half-bloods and pure-bloods, Alex isn't really sure how well she fits in anymore, especially considering she's fallen behind in everything. The one upside to that is that Alex gets to have extra training sessions with Aiden, the gorgeous and older pure-blood Sentinel who brought her back to the Covenant. And Alex may just be falling for him. But that would mean breaking the most important rule in their world: half-bloods and pure-bloods can't be together.

So Jennifer L. Armentrout is kind of amazing and I'm kicking myself for not having picked up Half-Blood sooner. But when I did pick it up I pretty much fell in love. With the book, with the story, with the characters, with the world. Basically I fell in love with everything about this book. The mythology was interesting and was in large part what drew me in to the book at first. Jennifer L. Armentrout wrote an incredible story that captivated me completely from start to finish. Every time I tried to put the book down, I found myself reading just one more chapter. The next thing I knew, I had read the entire book in one day. So yeah, all that to say that the book was amazing.

I loved Alex right from page one. Though she appeared just to be your typical sarcastic teenage girl, she turned out to be so much more than that. Every page I turned I discovered something new about her and I loved her even more. It was great to see her come into her own as the story moved forward. But Alex also kept me amused for most of the book. Sometimes I seriously questioned her thought process, but that didn't stop me form wanting to become her new best friend. And I don't blame her for falling for Aiden, even though that was breaking the number one rule of their world. Aiden was mysterious and strong and handsome and kinda dreamy. It was easy to see why Alex fell for him, and I admit that I kind of did too.

Half-Blood was an absolutely wonderful book. I cannot wait for more in Pure and from now on I will make sure to read everything written by the fantastic Jennifer L. Armentrout.