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Save the cheerleader, save the world: A book review of 'The Van Alen Legacy' by Melissa De La Cruz
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I think ‘The Van Alen Legacy’ is probably my favorite book out of the ‘Blue Blood’ novel series and follows, ‘Blue Bloods,’ ‘Masquerade,’ and ‘Revelations.’ I sort of have a love/hate appreciation for Melissa De La Cruz’s writing, first off I think she does a fantastic job ending her chapters in such a way that the reader, pardon the vampirism pun, thirst for more. In that way she reminds me of Dan Brown especially his latest ‘The Lost Symbol.’
De La Cruz is also working with an intriguing premise in that the vampires in her books are actually angels, most are fallen angels who have repented, yet there are some who have agreed to assume humanly form in order to help the others. The punishment for fallen angels who have atoned is to take the form of vampires. As vampires they have become blue bloods, literally the social blue bloods one reads about in the society pages. Of course there are evil vampires who are the silver bloods who drink blood until their victims, either human or blue bloods themselves, are drained where then the spirits of their victims reside within them.
In this book particularly, I don’t remember De La Cruz doing this in the earlier novels, the story is told from three different viewpoints which takes pressure off her main heroine, Schuyler Van Alen is about as exciting as a bus schedule, although I do concede that she shows a little personality in this story. The other two narrators, Bliss and Mimi are much more interesting despite one playing host to Lucifer (hint, Rah-Rah) and the other acting as a detective trying to find a missing vampire child.
I have issues with the novels. First, I think this series is written in such a way that you almost have to start with the first book and then read each following in sequence. Yes, I know this is sort of expected with novels such as these, yet with the ‘Blue Blood’ series a new reader starting with ‘The Van Alen Legacy’ is probably not going to want to pick up the first book because they are going to be too confused. De La Cruz doesn’t do a good job in explaining what has happened previously in the other installments. I know some writers have a better knack for this sort of thing, but they can always produce a little cheat sheet to help readers along with the story. Listen, I’ve read all of the books within the last few months and I had problems remembering what had happened from one novel to the next. I think authors need to view giving readers some clue about the other storylines as an opportunity to sell the previous books, not something that you are giving away for free. It isn’t as if De La Cruz doesn’t give us clues as to what happened in the previous tales, but in my case I was half way through ‘Legacy’ when I finally remembered important elements from the previous novels.
Another thing I don’t think De La Cruz does well is describing the action sequences. They feel very messy and I have difficulty visualizing exactly what she is trying to portray in the storyline. At one point her characters are roaming around a underground Celtic city buried under Paris which sounds intriguing but there just didn’t seem to be a lot of descriptive juice in the writing to make me get really excited. Once again, a good concept but it suffers from poor execution.
To be honest, I don’t know if I would recommend the ‘Blue Blood’ series due to my previous points, but if one is to read the books, I say that ‘The Van Alen Legacy’ is my favorite of all of them.
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