*ARC Review--Half-Blood by Jennifer Armentrout*

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.

I received this ARC from the publisher for review. Thanks, Kate!

Jennifer Armentrout's Half-Blood was a marvelous YA debut for her! And I strongly recommend reading the e-prequel Daimon first! It's more like the unpublished first few chapters as where Daimon ends, Half-Blood literally begins! So download it, for only .99 cents!, before reading this if you want to know what happened to Alex before you meet her in Half-Blood! It's definitely worth it!

When first reading Half-Blood it readily reminded me a bit of Vampire Academy in a vague plot sense; girl on the run for some reason, returning to school, having the super hot guy who rescued you also re-train you to be ready for school come fall...but that's about where the sameness ends. It didn't bother me so much that it felt like Vampire Academy in the beginning, for there are still some tell-tale differences, it was only that minor plot thread that was the same.

Anyway, I dd love the concepts in the novel, with the gods and half-bloods vs pures. It was truly remarkable. The pacing was pretty good too. It was pretty sedate in some ways, not slow, not too fast. Almost perfect in a way as we got to know more about the world Alex lives in. And with steeping into new worlds there are new rules and history to learn. I can tell we're still in for quite a bit with the way things left off in Half-Blood.

Alex has to prove that she can catch up on the three years she's been away from school, only having returned after her mother was killed by daimons. So she's spending her entire summer training with Aiden--the pure who rescued her. And as the cover description says, pures and half-bloods cannot have relationships, it's forbidden. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen as relationships tend to occur slyly with pures and half-bloods, but when discovered, it's the half-blood who suffers. So there's merit to why Alex and Aiden shouldn't be together.

There's definitely some shocking revelations in the story. I really didn't see it coming, but perhaps I should've of. There's a rule, that I won't mention for it will lead to spoilers, that I tend to forget when it comes to paranormal novels. Anyways Alex goes through a lot of turmoil in the story and learns something truly earth shattering about herself.

I truly loved Alex though! We have the kind of YA heroine that I enjoy, a teenager who's got kind of an attitude and is fiercely courageous. She's got a bit of snark and wit mixed together as well. Alex was the kind of girl I probably would've been BFFs with when I was 17.

Truly a fabulous debut and a series that I will definitely be following through its end!

Overall rating 5/5 stars

Half-Blood releases October 18, 2011

This book adds to my 2011 Debut Author Challenge! (Even though I already surpassed my goal!)