Review: Covenant Series by Jennifer Armentrout

Daimon by Jennifer Armentrout
Genre: YA
Series: Convenant #.05

For three years, Alexandria has lived among mortals—pretending to be like them and trying to forget the duty she'd been trained to fulfill as a child of a mortal and a demigod. At seventeen, she's pretty much accepted that she's a freak by mortal standards... and that she'll never be prepared for that duty.

According to her mother, that’s a good thing.

But as every descendant of the gods knows, Fate has a way of rearing her ugly head. A horrifying attack forces Alex to flee Miami and try to find her way back to the very place her mother had warned her she should never return—the Covenant. Every step that brings her closer to safety is one more step toward death… because she's being hunted by the very creatures she'd once trained to kill.

The daimons have found her.

Half-Blood by Jennifer Armentrout
Genre: YA
Series: Convenant #1

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.

Jennifer Armentrout is a new YA author that everyone needs to check out. She has these two books out, plus another from a different series that are nice, awesome reads. I will be doing a review on the other book, Obsidian from the Lux series, soon. I just finished it earlier today; if I had to choose between the two series, I like the Lux series more.

This series is a bit reminiscent of the Vampire Academy series, but, of course, it's set up a little bit differently in a different world. It's about aether sucking daimons vs. the blood sucking Strigoi. She's the dhampir in the book basically, a half-blood which is the bottom half/slaves to the Moroi or in this case, pure-bloods. The half-blood/pure-blood is referencing how close they are to the Gods who gave them their powers. I recently read Kiss of Frost by Jennifer Estep and that is of the same story line, but with Greek mythology instead. They are all enjoying reads and are distinct enough that it shouldn't bother you or make you feel like you've read it already. It's not badly written and it wasn't until I was finished with the book that I drew that conclusion. While I was reading it, I wasn't immediately conscious that it's so VA-like. I just read it, immersed myself in the story, and then when I read reviews about it, I was conscious of the similiarities.

Naturally, Alex has fallen for a pure-blood, and she being a half-blood, it's forbidden between the two of them. She goes through training to become a Sentinel (or Guardian in VA), comes across daily obstacles, and tries to not test the boundaries of forbidden love. At the end of the book, she faces a very strong, important daimon and she has to fight her... it's all slightly familiar, right?

The story is enjoyable still and the world is built differently from VA. I enjoyed it and I'm a huge VA fan so for me to enjoy something that resembles the same story line, I think it's a nice feat for the book. If you're a fan of VA - totally loved the strong female character, forbidden love story, and hard obstacles - try the book. It's like reading VA all over again, except you have a different world to immerse yourself in and a new Dmitri, which is Aiden in this book :0)

If you have read it, did you notice the similarities right away? Did it bother you or did you still enjoy the book? I'm a lover of books and I rarely find/read a book I don't enjoy at least enough to give it 3 stars. There are some 2 star books in my GR shelves and I think there's only one 1 star book out of 882 books 0_o. So yeah, my reviews are always biased on a book-lover's opinion, lol.