Review: Blue Bloods - Melissa de la Cruz

Title: Blue Bloods
Author: Melissa de la Cruz
Format: Audiobook
Rating: 1 Star

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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. She prefers baggy, vintage clothes instead of the Prada and pearls worn by her classmates, and she lives with her reclusive grandmother in a dilapated mansion. Schuyler is a loner...and happy that way. Suddenly, when she turns fifteen, there is a visible mosaic of blue veins on her arm. She starts to crave raw food and she is having flashbacks to ancient times. Then a popular girl from her school is found dead... drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn't know what to think, but she wants to find out the secrets the Blue Bloods are keeping. But is she herself in danger?

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Reading Blue Bloods was a stark reminder that just about every YA vampire novel ever written is utter crap.  This book made me want to scream "I want that time back" over and over and over again.  I spent pretty much the ENTIRE novel feeling something like this:

The description of the novel states that the book is predominately about Schyler discovering she is a vampire, and learning how to deal with the fact that people are killing her kind.  But she's in the first chapter, then we don't hear ANYTHING about her for eight million pages.  This story takes so long to get going - we don't learn what the actual plot is until well over halfway into the book.

The characters are all spoiled underdeveloped brats.  The personalities of most of these characters, like Mimi, Bliss, Perfection (REALLY, Perfection?!), and their cohorts/friends are identical.  They all are super wealthy, super arrogant, pretty with blonde hair, identical snobby attitudes, and the same clothes and everything.  None of the characters grew or changed at all by the end of the novel.  None of them!  There was no development to the characters or story.  They were perfect and cute and nothing bad ever happened and everything always went their way. The author pretty much just Mary Sue'd  her way through Every. Single. Character. in this story!


And the story itself!  Oh. My. God.  Where was the story?  I'm still trying to find it and I finished the book yesterday!  If you love hearing about 15 year olds gaining access to 21+ clubs and drinking their way through high school, or listening to a never ending litany of who wore what today in school, then this is the book for you.  Because 90% of this book is just that.  If you want a book with actual substance, read something else. 

As I said, the novel opens with a scene about Schyler and her friend Dylan trying to get into a club.  Then we see Mimi and Jack next door in a different club. Then we have a chapter about Bliss smoking and picking out clothes.  Mimi then whines some more because Jack, Her BROTHER, won't flirt with her.  (I don't care if "twins" in this world are souls that have joined together for eternity.  The fact is in this book, they are brother and sister, and a romantic relationship between siblings is disgusting.)  After several more chapters of this crap, we finally learn that Schyler is a vampire.  Then we get to hear some more about clothing.  And kissing.  And some flashbacks.  Then, the plot actually starts to develop.  I have one word for the author: EDIT!


Basically, my feelings about the whole book can be summed up like this: