Review: Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

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.

Genre: YA mythology+romance

My rating for Half-Blood, (Covenant, #1):

Alexandria Andros is no Rose Hathaway, but dang do I like this girl! I love a heroine who causes a little bit of mischief and revels in it, one who knows what she wants and works her butt off to get it. I'm not the physically strong and mischievous kind of gal so it's really fun for me to read characters who think and act differently from myself.

Despite our differences, I felt connected to Alex, which I'll attribute to the Jennifer L. Armentrout's writing. I think she did a fine job with developing all of her characters.

Caleb was a fun character! I liked that Alex had a guy friend who didn't become a love interest. But because they had been such good friends for so long, I wish there had been deeper conversations between the two. I know at one point in the book Caleb didn't pressure her into talking/admitting the truth because he knew Alex wouldn't like, but I would have liked it a bit more if their relationship was one where they could share everything with each other because they were just that good of friends. Maybe that's crazy talk of mine because Alex is a tough girl and because the dynamics of a boy-girl friendship is a bit different than a girl-girl friendship. Maybe that makes a difference, but I still would have liked to see a tad more vulnerability in Alex when she was with her best friend... Armentrout showed vulnerability in Alex at the memorial service though so maybe I should just shut up now.

Speaking of vulnerability...Alex and Aiden, eh? Damn, did I like them! I think Armentrout built that relationship BEAUTIFULLY. The pacing was perfect and had me waiting and reeling in at just the right spots! Eeep! I still get all the butterflies when I think of those first moments of theirs... Those two characters made a huge contribution to my liking of the book.

Of course, I liked them so much that I was annoyed by Seth's interjection and I'm not sure how I'm going to take to that with the freakish connection he and Alex now have going on. I have a bad feeling he's going to start coming on strong to her...I guess I'll see where that goes!

Now, an issue I have with Half-Blood (which is probably a very unfair complaint) is that it didn't live up to Vampire Academy. Yeah, I know the comparison is unfair since they're written by authors with completely different styles and one is about Greek mythology while the other is a world of vampires, but seeing as how both the main characters are tough, I-don't-take-shit-from-anyone type of girls who are also “halfs” of their kind, who fall in love with their trainer... it's difficult not to compare them. And in comparing them, I find Rose to be the much more dominant and dimensional character. That's not to say I didn't like Alex, because I've already stated that I really do like her, but it just so happens that I think Rose outshines her.

I really enjoyed the world of pures and halfs. I love reading books about mythology and this was no exception. I cannot wait to read the rest of the series! 

Oh, and how GORGEOUS is this cover?! I'm crazy about this cover, it's just so pretty!! The other novels/novellas (Daimon, Pure, Deity, Elixir, and Apollyon) in the Covenant series are just as pretty too! Love, love, love!

Apart from the Covenant series, Jennifer L. Armentrout has another series called the Lux series, a couple stand-alone novels, and she's recently began writing new adult novels under the name J. Lynn. Find out more about her and her books on her website, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads!