“Blue Bloods” by Melissa De La Cruz

Three Stars

Schuyler (pronounced Skyler) Van Alan has never fit in with the other students at her elite private school in the heart of Manhattan. While the other students live lives of power, privilege, and money, Schuyler’s once prominent family has fallen from both fortune and grace within New York’s elite society. But none of this has really bothered her. She has her two best friends, Oliver and Dylan, and together they’re making it through high school just fine.

Until the day it all changes. After one of their classmates is found dead, the most popular boy in school, Jack Force, begins to pay attention to Schuyler. Then she receives an invitation to join The Committee, the most prestigious youth committee in all of Manhattan, open only to the children of the oldest, richest and most influential families of New York City. Schuyler’s grandmother insists she join and it is at the first meeting where she learns the truth. She, and everyone else on The Committee, are vampires. And if this isn’t enough to deal with, something evil has returned and is hunting them all down.

Schuyler must find the truth about her family’s past and find out what is hunting all the young vampires in the city before it finds her, all while trying to balance new and old friendships and make it through high school.

I had fun reading this book. The story is a fresh take on vampires and so seems to fit with the elite lifestyles of the wealthy of New York City. It’s clever and entertaining and a fairly quick read. I enjoyed all of the characters, both good and bad, and the history of vampires that she has created. Melissa has created a mythology for vampires that is so logical it’s effortless to accept and slide in to. The characters are developed and believable and you can’t help but like them, even when you jealously want to hate them. The back story is obviously well thought and planned out because she does an amazing job of piecing it all slowly together as the story progresses, revealing bit by bit at a time, until it finally all comes together in the end making sense.

“Blue Bloods” is the first in a series and I’ve already picked up several from the library to continue the story. I’m excited to learn more about the history of vampires and that of the characters themselves. I hope that their histories will piece together and connect in fun ways.

I do worry a little that this series will drag on too long and loose it’s best qualities. There are seven books in the series and I’m worried that the plots and content and going to wear thin. But who knows, maybe it will be great. I followed other series well beyond seven books and maybe this one will surprise me.

"Something Borrowed" by Emily Giffin

Two Stars

Rachel has spent her entire life playing the good-girl sidekick to her best friend Darcy, who leads a perfect life. Darcy has it all looks, an awesome PR job, a fancy New York apartment, and the ideal fiancé, Dex, whom Rachel happens to be in love with. While Rachel has always worked hard and played it safe earning a small studio New York apartment, a job as an over-worked associate at a large firm, and a non-existent love life.

This is how life just is and always has been for these BFF’s, until the night before Rachel’s thirtieth birthday.

After the surprise birthday party Darcy threw for her, Rachel sleeps with Dex. At first she thinks it was a drunken mistake, then Dex confesses that he has feelings for her. As the wedding date gets closer, Rachel is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to put her personal wants ahead of her life-long friendship.

I didn’t really like this book. It was well written, the characters were believable, and the plot was not very predictable. I just hated everyone in it. They were all morally corrupt, self-centered jerks.

Rachel is whiny and jealous of Darcy, but happy to follow along and enjoy the benefits of their friendship. She thinks she morally superior, smarter, and basically a better person than Darcy. But she spends the whole book betraying, lying, and plotting against her supposed best and oldest friend.

Dex is a scumbag for cheating on his fiancé whom he has been with for seven years. I couldn’t understand why Rachel would want to be with someone who would behave like that. If they’ll do it with ya, they’ll do it to ya, girl. Way to pick a winner, good luck with that one!

The end tries to balance things out and, I’m assuming, make Rachel and Dex look less awful, but I just don’t care. You can’t justify your behavior based on someone else’s, especially when you find out about theirs after the fact. You’re choices show who you are and Rachel is a lying cheat. Sorry, it is what it is.

The book is getting two stars because I didn’t hate it, it’s not that it’s a bad book, on the contrary the book is technically sound. It moves along quickly and the characters are very real. It’s just that I did not like the people in it and don’t really want to spend more time with them because they’re all jerks.