Review: Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: Half-Blood
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Series: Covenant #1
Genre: Paranormal Romance/Mythology
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Publication Date: September 20th, 2011
Edition: ebook, 242 pages
Source: Purchased
Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM





Synopsis:
     The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi purebloods 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.

    Armentrout is one of my favorite authors, and her Lux series is one of the best I have ever read. So, I must admit that I was a little disappointed with this series.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it and I plan on finishing it, I just feel that there could have been parts that were written better.

    Alex (Alexandra), is an interesting character. She has a lot of spunk, I like that in my female protagonists. So happy that gone are the days when the lady-protag is still just a damsel in distress waiting for some hunk to save her. She has some poor decision-making skills that's for sure. I would have liked to have seen a little more character development on her part during this book, but considering that she is about as stubborn as I am, it'll take her more than 200-something pages to get past some of it. Though more than once I really wanted to tell her to stop talking.

    Aiden is the typical YA-fiction heartthrob. Tall, hot, stoic, mysterious eyes. The weight of responsibility on his shoulders making him a stick in the mud for more than half the book. If I hadn't known from the hype of the series that he was one of the romantic interests, I honestly wouldn't have guessed it. I did thoroughly like his character, though. He was a good balance from Alex's brashness, he was the calm to her raging storm. And once their attraction to one another was admitted I liked the idea of them together.

    Which brings me to Seth. From the get-go, his place in this story confused me. It made me wonder if his role was only made male to that there'd be a 'love triangle'. And I really don't know if that is the best way to have a love-triangle. I generally don't care for them anyway, but if it's used to tell a story it needs to be done in a way that doesn't make the story about the main character's relationship. I like the idea behind what his character is, I find that to be very interesting. And the connection he shares with Alex is something that I am interested in discovering where it leads.

    I would recommend this book to others, The beginning is a little slow but the rest of the story is really fast-paced and engaging.