What age is the book Crave for?

Crave – Book Review / Revisiting some Twilight Cringe

Well hello, friends! How are you all doing this week? Today I have a Crave Book Review up. If someone had told me last year that 2020 would be the year of Twilight, I would have laughed. But now it’s September and I’ve reread Twilight, read Midnight Sun, and I’ve read Crave (which is essentially a Twilight retelling). I guess I’m the fool. Anyhow, let’s get into it.

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Author: Tracy Wolff

Rating: 3 Stars

Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, YA

Content Warnings: Parental Death, Death of a loved one

Format: eARC

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Date Published: April 7th 2020

Goodreads Description: My whole world changed when I stepped inside the academy. Nothing is right about this place or the other students in it. Here I am, a mere mortal among gods…or monsters. I still can’t decide which of these warring factions I belong to if I belong at all. I only know the one thing that unites them is their hatred of me.

Then there’s Jaxon Vega. A vampire with deadly secrets who hasn’t felt anything for a hundred years. But there’s something about him that calls to me, something broken in him that somehow fits with what’s broken in me.

Which could spell death for us all.

Because Jaxon walled himself off for a reason. And now someone wants to wake a sleeping monster, and I’m wondering if I was brought here intentionally—as the bait.

I received a review copy from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I’m going to start off by saying that I really enjoyed this book. I am trash for vampire boarding schools, so I’m all for it. However, I’m not blind to the flaws so I’ll try to be as objective as possible.

Characters

This book does a lot to be compared to Twilight. I mean just look at the cover. At first, I thought to myself that I should not compare it to Twilight, but then I did because it was obviously marketed that way. Twilight is also mentioned BY NAME in the book, so I was just like -_-.

Okay fine, you win. Let’s compare this whole thing to Twilight. First off, we have Grace, who is our Bella. Personality-wise she and Bella are very similar in my opinion. Kinda smart, kinda nerdy, doesn’t wear makeup (because I’m not like the other girls. Cue the massive eye-roll). Grace does have a lot more bite than Bella, which I liked. She does not let Jaxon walk over her, and she’s not afraid to call it like it is. I admired that, but honestly, I am still not a fan of insta-love.

Words like “mate” gets thrown around and it honestly just leads me to excessive alcohol use. Can we please strike the word “mate” from our vocabularies.

Jaxon, on the other hand, is not Edward. He’s dark and broody, but has a sense of humour and is actually fun to be around. He doesn’t go all out creepy stalker, but there’s still some major red flags there. But I can’t see red flags because I’m blind. I’d let Jaxon sink his teeth into me in a heartbeat.

This book is also similar to Twilight in the fact that it lacks some diversity. We get LGBTQ and POC characters, but they’re off-page and not important to the story. Which is a big no for me. A great opportunity was missed there to be better.

Characters = 6

Atmosphere

Ever since I’ve been like 13, I have wanted to go to a boarding school. Blame Fallen and Vampire Academy. So if the words “boarding school” are included in the synopsis, I’m there. Include “castle” “isolated” and “Alaska”, I’m there yesterday.

It was creepy and cold and I love it.

Spoiler!

Also, there’s this really amazing scene where Jaxon takes Grace to see the Aurora Borealis and I was just dying the whole time. 

Atmosphere = 8

Writing

Here’s where my biggest issues lie. And truly I am not saying this to be mean, I mean it as a genuine critique of this book. The author is an adult woman, why is she writing a teen romance this spicy? All of her other books are ADULT books. Why could Crave not be set at a university? I’m not saying that adults can’t write YA, but this particular brand of romance is just bordering on something creepy. You could tell the author wanted the characters to be more, and a university setting could have been it.

We give Jay Kristoff the same treatment for his depiction of a sixteen-year-old girl in Nevernight. As an adult (kinda) myself I think we should be having this conversation. A book like Crave could have helped the New Adult Age range grow, and with some more thought put into characters we could have had something amazing. It tried too hard to be Twilight, and it’s just not.

You can clearly see in the writing style that Wolff is an adult. She uses abbreviations like FML and AF in text. Like Grace actually thinks the abbreviation FML. I might be 24, but our millennial asses invented text speak, and we have never thought like that. In addition to the text speak, Wolff uses words like genuflect, laisses-faire and Machiavellian in text. I had to google genuflect.  It did not fit in with a character who says FML out loud.

Also, if you want your characters to be able to say fuck, maybe rethink your age range.

Writing = 4

Plot

This book had no right to be 600 pages. And I say that as someone who completely devoured all those pages in less than two days. The plot moves slowly, there’s not enough focus on the other characters and we miss important information because Grace is too busy sucking face with Jaxon to ask any meaningful questions. I need this girl to get some agency, and I need her to be smarter.

Plot = 5

Intrigue

You can tell this review is extremely polarizing as I sit here pointing out the flaws, but in my heart, I want to give this book five stars. Alas.

The worldbuilding needs some work. There are four different species at the school, vampires, wolf shifters, witches and dragons. We know absolutely zero about any of them. There’s so many politics going on behind the scenes, and the relationship dynamics between these groups would be amazing to explore. Once again though, Grace isn’t interested in it, so we don’t see it.

A lot of important conversations are brushed to the side, and I would be curious AF (see what I did there) to know about each species and the social dynamics. And to be fair, Grace does put some research into it, but it happens off-page and the reader gets nothing.

I am intrigued, but I’m also left wanting more.

Intrigue = 5

Logic

Same argument as above TBH (I can’t stop myself anymore). The magic system is not explained properly. I want to know more about the politics and the social dynamics than just “we all hate each other”. I want to know why a vampire who is at least 100 years old is still at a boarding school in remote Alaska. Shouldn’t he have graduated by now?

I have just way too many unanswered questions.

Logic = 5

Enjoyment

Okay, my objectivity is flying out the window here because I enjoyed this book SO MUCH. I could not stop reading and I was just so into it. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s terrible but so good. I loved this book and I cannot wait to read the rest of the series.

Enjoyment = 10

CAWPILE = 6.1/10

Stars = 3 Stars (but 5 in my heart)

Let me know your thoughts on Crave.

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