Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz

Melissa De la Cruz introduces us to the world of the Blue Bloods, over-privileged, Manhattan, teens, who attend a very private school and basically do whatever they want without any repercussions. Schuyler (pronounced like Skyler) Van Alen attends Duchesne, yet she believes she is nothing like her peers. She and her best friend Oliver have isolated themselves from the rest of the students and are treated like outsiders. The ruling clique of the school is lorded over by the Force twins, Mimi and Jack, and Schuyler soon finds out that she has a little more in common with the in-crowd than she thought - vampirism. Yet, just as she begins exploring her new life, something begins killing young Blue Bloods and Schuyler, Oliver, and their new friends are forced to delve into the secrets of their new way of life and uncover long buried cover-ups and an enemy that goes back to the beginning...

My first thoughts were that this book was pretty unique. But as the story progressed, while the idea behind vampirism was different, it had similarities between Mead's Vampire Academy and the House of Night series. Like those two series, it also has some sexually references - and is not as squeaky clean as I would like. So I would keep it away from your tweens.
The character of Schuyler Van Alen was a bit of an enigma. I couldn't quite place her personality, she shows some signs of being very confident, yet very shy and insecure. Like the usual "outsider" she believes herself better than the in-crowd, above their immature and vapid behavior, yet is sucked in so easily that you wonder about her loyalties. Her opinions of her classmates, grandmother and classmates parents seem very negative a lot - whereas she also seems to have a lot of affection for them. Its a bit confusing and it led me to really not like her that much. I really didn't like any of the characters in this book, but the story was interesting so I read on.

A huge annoyance that I had with novel was also the constant reciting of labels and designer names. It was frustrating and shallow. I really didn't care what dress MiMi and Bliss wore to a funeral - I couldn't tell you who the designer she named was anyway, considering I'm not a fashionista. I really hope the second book doesn't focus so much on labels and meaningless textures and fabrics.
Otherwise the book was well written and interesting, keeping me going and locked into the story. I do want to read the second in the series, yet I don't know if I'm going to move on right now.
The second cover is the French cover.  I actually like this one better.