Crave

I went into this one with such enthusiasm, unfortunately, Crave didn’t work out all that well for me.

Early on, I thought, okay, his hostility towards her, her being kind of dumbfounded/enthralled by his beauty or whatever, that felt somewhat forced, like paint-by-numbers human/vampire romance, but the potential for sparks was there, the potential for it to build into something with more depth and intensity, but instead of slow burning their way into a relationship it was somewhat of an insta-love situation which seemed like such a questionable choice for a book that’s over five hundred pages with plenty of time to let the romance develop at a more natural pace.

Not only were their feelings for one another very immediate, but neither show more spent much time fighting those feelings which is kind of essential if you want tension in a romance and I do like tension in a romance. I like something holding them back from one another. Yeah, Jaxon talks plenty about how they shouldn’t be together but it is mostly just talk on his part, his actions were pretty much all in. And Grace, what I think really could have distinguished this from Twilight comparisons would have been if Jaxon’s behavior and/or identity as a vampire did give her pause, if she tried to keep her distance all the while feeling this pull towards him, that would have felt different, if she was conflicted about him that would have created tension, instead, a lot like Bella, nothing he does, not his controlling nature, not the violence in him, not all these people gunning to kill her because of her involvement with him, none of it phases Grace for long. While it is a romantic notion that you’d accept someone for exactly who they are without question, blind acceptance isn’t particularly human or smart, and it doesn’t make for as complicated of a story as this could have been.

As for Grace and Jaxon as individuals, with Jaxon, the backstory involving his brother genuinely intrigued me, and I was fairly engaged in the moments where he’s dark, broody, and volatile, it’s the moments in the texts, the moments when they’re lovey-dovey (for lack of a better term) where Jaxon rang a bit false to me, so much so that when they first communicated via text I actually thought it must be some other character posing as him, there was something about his voice in the lighter moments that I couldn’t reconcile with the tortured version of Jaxon who felt somehow truer.

Due to the structure of the story, having Grace kept in the dark until late in the book, having little opportunity for her to dig into her own family’s history and what that might mean to who she is, and also seeing so little of her in school classes or indulging in her own interests, it left her seeming underdeveloped, falling in love was really the only focus in her life and I tend to want more than that for any heroine.

Without a gradual build of their relationship, without really establishing Grace outside of the romance, hundreds of pages unfolded in a repetitive cycle of events, warnings to be careful with Grace heeding none of them nor really demanding to know why she was being warned, someone walking Grace to class, Grace getting hurt or threatened, Grace being rescued, Grace recovering in bed, food delivered to Grace, Grace being told to stay in bed/her room and sneaking out. These things happened over and over again, I mean, yeah, finally at the very end a twist was thrown into the mix, but for the most part, there wasn’t enough variety to the scenes, Crave felt like two hundred fifty pages worth of story stretched out over five hundred pages. show less

Parents die, school is secretly full of monsters, broody vampire shows up—same energy as a high school musical directed by Stephen King.

Basically, MC Grace moves to Katmere Academy after her parents die, where she is surrounded by supernaturals her uncle and cousin failed to mention—classic “we didn’t think you needed to know” parenting that I am very hopeful only exists for the plot and not IRL. She meets broody vampire Jaxon, almost dies repeatedly, discovers she’s a human-shaped plot device in a brewing supernatural war, and kisses a boy mid-earthquake. Somehow survives. Oh, and reads a copy of Twilight given to her by said broody vamp—self-awareness level: peak. (Grace almost dies like six times. Survives. Still show more somehow thinks reading Twilight is the peak of detective work. But since Kristen Stewart thought Yahoo search (not even google...) was good enough for her own story, I guess that just where the bar is)

Fun? Yes. Good? Absolutely not.

I wish I’d read this as a teen because I think I would have enjoyed it unironically, but alas, I was firmly in my 20s with a fully developed frontal lobe. Still, I devoured it because misery loves company. show less

I found so much joy in reading this book. Is it going to be used in literature classes? Nope. But it was just shamelessly fun. Parts of it were so on the nose that I cackled.

Old boy sends her a copy of Twilight from the library before he tells her he’s a vampire. Classic.

The moment I stepped foot inside the academy, everything changed for me. The environment or the students in this place are not right. I am but a mortal amid gods... or monsters. I'm still unsure of which faction I belong to, if any. One thing unites them all: their hatred of me.

And then there's Jaxon Vega. Having not experienced a single emotion for a hundred years, this vampire has deadly secrets. But something about him calls to me, something broken in him that somehow fits with my brokenness.

It could spell death for us all.

Jaxon had a reason for walling himself off. Now, someone wants to awaken a dormant monster, and I'm questioning whether I was brought here intentionally.

It was exactly what I imagined Twilight would be like. No show more glitter is included.

I don't even know where to begin!

The first 550 pages of the 680 were without action. There was no need for more than 300 pages, because three-quarters of the book revolved around Grace's obsession with Jaxon, from the moment he first rudely snapped at her and touched her without asking. She must be the most superficial person who has ever lived, or raised in an underground bunker with no social contacts, to fall in love at first sight with a thoroughly unpleasant asshole just because he's so gorgeous.

Even worse, she drops everything for him. Because she constantly tries to tell Jaxon what she thinks, but then ends up doing precisely what he wants, she doesn't seem even to notice it (well, okay, she doesn't see much overall either). I applaud you. Congratulations, Grace! Forget about self-esteem, it's not necessary.

That no one notices is extremely strange, quite the opposite! She even said at one point that she would not listen to anyone's advice.

It made me laugh so hard.

My primary concern, however, was Grace's complete stupidity. Whenever something unnatural happens, she makes up far-fetched or idiotic explanations without even checking whether they are accurate.

She's also not surprised that Jaxon gave her bodyguards (seriously, she didn't ask explicitly). When they pick her up and take her to her classrooms, she isn't surprised at all!

She had only been to class twice during all that time (despite her poor physical and mental condition as a result of all her accidents). She was almost killed (multiple times), and she discovered that Jaxon loved her (yes, about a week or perhaps less). Despite barely any communication, lots of secrecy, and many bad jokes exchanged, they became a couple.

The book contains pop culture references time and time again. As a book project, I'm self-reflective (Twilight, young adult books, Hogwarts), sometimes even to make super cool characters seem super cool (Twilight, young adult books). For me, it always seemed deliberate, even a bit snobbish. Seventy percent of the references will be irrelevant five years from now. Well done.

I do not recommend this book. The only reason I finished it was because it was a train wreck that I could not tear my eyes away from, not because it had any redeeming qualities or was genuinely entertaining.

In summary, the book is poorly executed, with shallow characters, excessive pop culture references, and little substance, making it unworthy of recommendation. show less

This is exactly what it says on the tin. It reads like a cross between Vampire Academy and Twilight (the cover was a smart choice) and it is a totally derivative and delicious blend. Here are the ingredients:

- brooding vampire boyfriend

- everyone is trying to kill the main character

- over the top villains

- OMG she has a secret ability she doesn't know about

- school for paranormal teens but she never goes to class

I am not going to pretend that this book does anything new or original. Or that I wasn't annoyed by the constant use of "hot AF" or "intimidating AF." ("Hello, fellow kids") BUT. I loved it anyway.


Content Warnings: violence, numerous attempts on MC's life, one character killed their brother in the past, MC's parents died in a show more car accident just prior to start of book


Suzanne received a digital copy of this book for review. show less

UPDATE: 18/12/2022 - Reread. It makes no sense that I reread a book I did not really enjoy. I need my head examined. I stand by my original review 100%. The all consuming relationship between Miss Yearny and Mr Brooder was insane. At one point she was thinking how out of character someone was acting and she hadn't seen them behave like that before...you met him a week ago lady, there's a lot you don't know. Seriously, is this a healthy portrayal of love? I think not.

Original Review

In my opinion 57% is a long way into the book for any action to start. Especially considering that this book is meant to have a monster war going on. After we finally saw some fangs it still meandered along for a bit and then BAM, it was all on! There were a show more few action packed chapters that were actually pretty good but not nearly enough to balance out the long lingering gazes and brushing up of bodies that filled up nearly the entire book. There were a lot of ‘smexy’ blood sucking scenes and intense groping scenes which normally I would find quite cringey but somehow seemed to fit as this was pretty much a romance book.

There were some little nuggets of humour dotted throughout which made me laugh out loud. Two notable examples were:
a) when Jaxon (the vampire) sent Grace a copy of Twilight to read as a hint of what he is. She didn't get the hint btw.
b) One of the chapter headings was ‘Is that a wooden stake in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’ Yip. Still funny!

On the yearny scale it’s pretty high but again, it kinda fitted in with the whole brooding vampire versus dastardly dragon vibe. I’ve literally just worked out what made the high levels of yearning semi-acceptable to me! Like right now as I am typing! It felt like gothic literature! Yay me for finally figuring out why I wasn’t getting annoyed that my yearn-o-meter was clanging away in the background. Gothic literature is filled with tortured souls who are in various states of despair due to love and loss and there's oodles of...you guessed it...yearning! The setting is super gothic too. A castle type place in a cold and remote area.

Gothic literature vibes aside, an aspect I didn’t like that seems to be prevalent in YA fiction is the notion of characters in the book having such intense and all consuming connections with their love interests. I’m not sure if it is setting up particularly healthy relationships or very realistic expectations for real life relationships. I’ll use a couple of quotes to illustrate my point.

“something broken in him that somehow fits with what’s broken in her”

Ummmm...two brokes don’t make a right, people. Codependency anyone?

“Just looking at him feels perilous. Standing next to him feels like walking a 100ft high rope without a net. And wanting him the way I do, wanting him feels like opening a vein just to see myself bleed.”

Ummmm….I have no words.

So my final star rating reflects the lack of monster showdowns and whilst I LOOOOOVE gothic literature, orgasmic blood sucking just isn’t my thing.

This book is just okay for me.

2.5 Stars show less

Recent review upon second read:I originally read this back in 2023 on my kindle and gave it a 3 star rating because it reminded me too much of another book but recently I've decided regardless a lot of these books having similarities I need to go in with an open mind as I've never read those other books and read or reread each book as if it was my first time, being that my memory is getting crappy this makes it easier LOL.

With that being said I feel I enjoyed this book a lot more this second time around, I even annotated some pages and found myself doing some cute doodles on the pages.

I had fun reading this and although sometimes Grace's naiveness got a bit under my skin I enjoyed that she finally wasn't taking crap and was able to show more stand up for herself.
I enjoyed the side characters as well as the banter between some of the characters. And I enjoyed the spin the author did to set this apart from other vampire/wolf story lines.

What I still didn't like previously was the over use of things as "AF, FML, WTF" in the audio version however in physically reading it I know what the abbreviations were and therefore said the full words which would have been better if the narrator also wrote them all out, not a huge deal but a bit annoying.
Overall I had fun, it took me out of a book hangover and it was for sure entertaining.💜💜💜

I finally got through Crave by Tracy Wolff, on a recommendation from a few friends.. Maybe I've read too many vampire/wolf/supernatural books and despite there being similarities in those other books they have their own separate story lines, definite distinction between characters that I've read but this one takes the cake on being too similar. This was a lot like Twilight, and don't get me wrong I love Twilight but having a practically mirror copy of characters was just a little too much for me yet at the same time it was very nostalgic. I was however, overly annoyed at how much she wrote "AF, FML, WTF" listen linda, I have a teenager and she doesn't even use these abbreviations as much as you did in this book, maybe it was worst as I listened to the audiobook version but it was like nails on a chalkboard annoying.

Grace/Bella, Jaxon/Edward, Flint/Jacob, Macy/Jessica
Folks - cold and wet ---- Alaska - cold and wet, lol
I won't list more as I don't want to spoil it for others that might like it more than I did.

It was difficult at first for me because when I read I see characters come to life in my head but when I'm seeing the same characters from another book with almost mirror copy story lines, so it just became a little weird and feels more like a fan fiction reboot to me (not that those are bad but was difficult at first for me to get into).
Towards the end I will admit I really started to enjoy the book enough that I went on to purchasing the rest of the series. What can I say whether it's too close to other books it's still in a sense a different take on some of my supernatural characters. I went from a 2 star to a 3 star rating :).

In my mind it was a train wreck that I just couldn't stop reading/listening to as I was already invested and it hooked me to the point of purchasing the rest of the series. show less