Half -Blood by Jennifer L. 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.
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I have been waiting to sink my teeth into this book for a really looong time now.  I don't know how I heard about this book.  Maybe Darian told me about. Anyways I've been waiting forever to finally read it and for Christmas my dad got be a B&N gift card and I decided to put it to good use.  I was so excited to get it, and I knew from the moment I held it in my hands it was going to be one of the best books I had ever read.  
And I was right.  I always am when it comes to books.
Let's talk about the cover for a moment, shall we?  Isn't it gorgeous?  I am absolutely in love with this cover.  I can't even describe how much I am in love with this cover.  Whoever came up with the concept for this cover was an absolute genius.  I've seen the other covers for the series and I love them too.  I think they're all great.
Moving on...  So this book is about a girl named Alex who is a half-blood.  She lives in a world where her kind the 'pures' are descended from the gods and some of them have supernatural abilities.  They are also hunted by things called daimon, and they kill daimons.  So how in hell do you pronouce daimon you may ask?  Well here's how: DEE-mun.  So basically demon just spelled differently than most of us are used to seeing.  Alex's life is complicated.  Her mother took her away from the Covenant and wouldn't tell her why.  Then her mother is killed by daimons and she now has to find her way back to the Covenant.  That's when Aiden and two others come to her rescue.  Aiden is a 'pure' and Alex kind of has a thing for him.  I can see why he's perfect.  He's strong, good looking, smart, funny when he wants to be...  But relationships between half-bloods and purebloods are forbidden.  If any half-blood has a relationship with a pureblood they could be thrown into servitude, and trust me you do not want that.  Alex almost gets thrown into servitude, but Aiden comes to her rescue and prevents that from happening.  Alex wants to be a Sentinel, like Aiden is, but she's far behind in her studies and her uncle Marcus gives her until the end of the summer to get caught up, and if she doesn't she has to go into servitude.  And here's the kicker, Aiden has to train her...
Ok so I think I covered everything in that very long elaborate paragraph.  I hope I didn't confuse anyone or give away anything major.  I'm pretty sure I didn't give away anything to spoilery for you guys.
From the moment Alex's uncle Marcus told her that Aiden would be training her I knew that there was going to be some major trouble there.  And I was right.  There's this one part where Alex is really frustrated, and no I am not going to tell you because that would ruin the book for you, and she takes it out on Aiden in the training room.  Well he stops her and they're pressed up against a wall.  Then she kisses him.  Yep that's right she kisses him, and he kisses her back.  The whole time I'm reading this I look like this:

I can ship it.  I ship them so much it's not even funny.  Okay spoiler so if you don't want to know then don't read it, but if I don't tell you I might burst.  Here it is: Alex and Aiden almost sleep together and they almost get caught.  Big huh?  I feel a lot better now.
 They sort of start ignoring their feelings for one another, and go on like nothing happened.  Which is really hard for both of them, and you can tell.  Then out of the blue Alex's step-dad shows up.  Alex doesn't like him and she thought that he didn't like her either, but he's acting all funny toward her now, and she wants to know what's up with him.  She's just like:

Then you find out that the Apollyon, his name is Seth, is there and that's like a really big deal because he's the only half-blood that can control all the elements.  (Here's how you pronounce Apollyon: a-Pol-ee-on)  Then Alex finds out that she is his other half, and that they are meant to be together.  That they're like soul mates.  Which freaks her out even more than she already is.  And I'm sitting there looking at the book like:

 I don't know how I feel about them yet.  I'm still on Team Aiden.
*Sigh*  Now I have to wait to get the rest of the series.  I'm broke right now, and have no way to get the rest of the series.  It'll be a few months though I know that much.  Oh well, I have other books that I need to read and catch up on at the moment.

Favorite Quotes:
“Okay. I’m ready to move onto something else, like practicing with knives or defense against the dark arts. Cool things.”
“Did you just quote Harry Potter?” 

 “ALEX: “How come you smile when you knock me down?”
AIDEN: “It’s the little things that make me happy.”

“Are you lost, Lea? This isn't where they're handing out the free pregnancy tests.”

“So a skunk humped my leg earlier.”

“It's just words and words mean nothing. Only action does."-- Aiden” 

Overview:
Rating: Five Stars  
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press 
First Published:  October 18th, 2011
Pages: 281
Series Book: Yes
Will I Read the Next One: Uh Yeah!
~Ariadne