Throwback Review {1} Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz

Blue Bloods
Author: Melissa de la Cruz
Series: Blue Bloods #1 | Other Books in the Series: Masquerade, Revelations,  The Van Alen Legacy, Keys to the Repository, Misguided Angel, Bloody Valentine, Lost in Time
Publication Info: April 25th 2006 by Hyperion
My Rating: 4 Stars
Categories: Young Adult, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Vampires, Paranormal Romance, Angels
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What the Back of the Book Says: 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?

My Thoughts: This was the first series that I read that revolved around vampires after finishing Twilight. Out of all of the vampire-lit out there, I feel confident when I say that this is the most unique, interesting, engaging vampire series out there! The series focuses around Schuyler Van Alen who finds out that she is a 'blue blood' (aka - vampire). There are different kinds of vampires - Blue Bloods and Silver Bloods (the bad guys). Each blue blood has a human familiar which they feed off of, and develop a very intimate (sometimes sexual) relationship with. 

Schuyler is one of my favorite characters. She is beautiful and dresses very bohemian (I always think Olsen twins, lol) and spends her time with her BFF, Oliver Hazard-Perry. Schuyler lives with her grandmother, Cordelia, her mother is in a coma in the hospital and her father is deceased. As the book goes on, we are given snippets from when the Mayflower sailed across the Atlantic to America, and as the story weaves from past to present, we start to see that each character is a reincarnation of a previous person. It sounds crazy, and it gets confusing at times, but ultimately I think the concept is incredibly cool!

The first book was definitely not my favorite of the series. It starts out very Gossip Girl meets Vampire Diaries but while the wealth and glamour do continue into the rest of the books in the series - it isn't as heavy or focused on as much as it is in this first book.Once you read around those parts and digest the meat of the book, you'll fall in love with it just like I did!

I adore de la Cruz's writing style. It's easy to read, yet not very simplistic. It's a book that I'd read in a quiet place and not with the TV on in order to fully digest every word on each page. There are not many lulls or parts where I was bored - and I immediately bought the next two books in the series after finishing this one.