A girl is dead, a demon may or may not be on the loose, and 15-year-old Schuyler Van Alen has just discovered blue veins on her arms. Schuyler has an illustrious last name and attends an even more illustrious private school, but she's never felt comfortable in that world of glitz, glamour, and gold-plated everything. The girl who died was Schuyler's schoolmate. And Jack Force, one of the popular Force twins, who rule her school, has developed a sudden, dizzying interest in Schuyler. Strange happenings are afoot in wealthy, modern Manhattan. Venditti and Urusov have done an excellent job of adapting the first novel in de la Cruz's complicated and much-beloved Blue Bloods series into a graphic novel. Urusov's stylish and stylized artwork showcases the gossip-girl-meets-vampires theme of the original book and perfectly complements Venditti's action-oriented pacing and plot-propelling dialogue.--Mack, Candice Copyright 2010 Booklist

Gr 8 Up-The first volume in this popular vampire series is now available in graphic format. The story begins with a flashback to a handwritten 1620 diary, chronicling the arrival of vampires with Myles Standish and the early Mayflower colonists. It quickly segues to a contemporary club scene in New York City. Readers meet 15-year-old Schuyler and her classmates from an elite prep school, as well as Bliss, newly arrived from Texas. The girls begin to experience unusual symptoms, including blue veins that form intricate patterns just below the surface of the skin. Schuyler discovers that she and her glamorous young friends are Blue Bloods, a form of fallen angels or vampires. She learns that something is hunting them, even killing some of them, and she is determined to stop their annihilation, even if she must contend with the vampire hierarchy. Graphic devices help readers keep track of the frequently changing scenes and multiple characters. Small black boxes with white lettering provide introductions to the numerous characters, and boxes shaded in pale blue give time and location information. Occasionally the artist uses changes in color palette to signal scene changes. The numerous abrupt changes create a reading experience that is often disjointed, constantly fluctuating among the various characters' story lines. Realistic art highlights the glamorous lifestyle of these upper-class young "immortals," and the graphic images of blue-blood veins are particularly effective.-Barbara M. Moon, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

This is a graphic novel adaptation of de la Cruz's fallen-angels-as-vampires soap opera. The panel illustrations successfully employ light effects, cropping, shading, and impossibly beautiful characters to add an industry-standard gloss to the appearance-driven plot. Unfortunately, de la Cruz's nonsensical plot remains nonsensical, especially in the abbreviated, dialogue-only graphic-novel format. (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.