Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz

Within New York City's most elite families, there lurks a secret society of celebrated Americans whose ancestors sailed on the Mayflower. Its members are the powerful and the wealthy -and, in fact, they are not human. They are the Blue Bloods, an ancient group of vampires.

Schuyler Van Alen has never fit in at Duchesne, her prestigious New York City Private School. She prefers baggy clothes instead of the Prada and pearls worn by her classmates, and she lives with her reclusive grandmother in the dilapidated mansion. Schuyler is a loner...and happy that way.

But when she turns fifteen, Schuyler's life changes dramatically. She discovers a mosaic of blue veins on her arms and, and craves raw meat. The death of a popular girl from Duchesne is surrounded by a mystery that haunts her. And strangest of all, Jack Force, the most popular boy in school, is showing a sudden interest in her.

To describe Blue Bloods in a sentence I would say that it's like Gossip Girl meets Twilight meets V.C. Andrews meets the Mayflower. It's hard to judge the first book in a series (particularly since I haven't read the other two books yet) without either giving out crucial plot points to people who haven't read it yet or dwelling on something that could very well be explained in a later book. Because, damn....I have so many questions.

First of all, if you haven't read Blue Bloods yet, GET ON IT! There's something in this for you. Do you like reading about spoiled rich kids? Misunderstood loner protagonists? Vampires? History? Biblical allegory? Implied incest? This series includes all of that, but not to the extent that its predictable or formulaic or that it feels like just another rip off of another more well known book. Because you have no idea how sick I am of Harry Potter/Twilight rip offs right now. No, instead, de la Cruz takes things that you might think you know the gist of already -the vampire myth, random pretty rich kids and their problems, the disappearance of the Roanoke colony- and does what few authors seem to want to do these days: she adds depth and creativity and makes what should be a ridiculous premise plausible, interesting, and fun.

It works really well as a first book in a series. I say that only because if some of my questions aren't answered after books two and three I'm going to be pissed off. There are definitely some elements I don't fully understand yet, but then again Heroes confuses me, so make of that what you will. However, I think it says a lot that in a book featuring vampires, past lives, and fallen angels, I only called shenanigans twice: when Schuyler and her friend Bliss inexplicably became jean models for about a day and when the people in charge of the modeling revealed that they and most others in the fashion industry are vampires as well. For a group who are supposed to number just 400, vampires apparently get around a lot.

That being said, I can't wait to start book 2, Masquerade. I can definitely vouch that these books should be accessible to just about anyone, because if they're in the two Wal-Marts closest to me, they should be just about everywhere. You have no excuse.

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