February 5, 2008
"Gossip Girl" is pretty popular.
"Twilight" and its assorted sequels are also popular.
So it would seem natural for an enterprising writer to combine the two, as unholy a combination as it might be. You can almost hear the publisher's thought process: "Gee, the young'uns sure took a shine to those rich kids and to those handsome undead fellows. How can we cash in? [Grumbles under breath] In my day, we read "Tom Sawyer," and we liked it, gosh darn it. Hold on, I’ve got it! We can put the two together! Hire a ghostwriter, stat!"
And that is why author Melissa de la Cruz has gifted the world with "Blue Bloods," a book about vampire teen socialites.
Yes, vampire teen socialites. I’m still not sure if that’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard or the best. You could say the same for the actual book. It’s pretty ridiculous, but also ridiculously entertaining.
The book revolves around 15-year-old Schuyler Van Alen. Like every other character she has a ludicrous name (my personal favorite is Schuyler’s BFF Oliver Hazard-Perry), fabulous good looks and an impossibly distinguished and convoluted family tree. Oh, and she’s a vampire.
Pretty much every other character of note is a vamp as well. Like Jack Force (which is physically impossible to say without using jazz hands), Schuyler’s crush. And Mimi Force, Jack’s semi-incestuous wonder twin.
"Blue Bloods" has an exceedingly complicated mythology that I won’t bother to explain, both to avoid spoilers and to save time. Let’s just say it involves angels, WASPs, reincarnation and the Pilgrims. You heard me. The Pilgrims. They were all bloodsuckers. I just made Thanksgiving SO awesome, didn’t I?
It’s not a particularly well-written book, but the biggest problem with "Blue Bloods" is that it suffers from tons of pretentiousness.
It’s sort of schizophrenic in its pretentiousness, though. It’s like a combo of gothic faux deepness and label-obsessed rich kid snobbery. The whole thing seems like it was written by a teenage girl who is really into, like, romantic poetry and Evanescence and wants to write a novel that reflects her dark, twisted soul and all her deep thoughts, but then she remembered she would really like to be popular and have a boyfriend so she threw all of that into it too.
Still, I have to give "Blue Bloods" props. Admittedly, it’s not very well-written. But trashy teen fantasy novels really don’t have to be. They just have to be entertaining, and "Blue Bloods" succeeds on that front, even if a lot of the entertainment is unintentional.
And I know I’m definitely going to read the sequel, "Masquerade," even if I strongly suspect the series is just a canny publisher’s plot to cash in on the "Gossip Girl"/"Twilight" fad.
