Review of Crave by Tracy Wolff

Crave by Tracy Wolff

4.07 out of 5 Stars

I feel like this book could spark some big controversies and opinions, but at the end of the day, I really just got sucked into the story, cheesy moments and dramatics and all. Crave is the story you get when you take the odds and ends of Harry Potter and Twilight and put them together. Remember how there used to be "games" where you can create new crayons out of old melted crayons? Crave is the new crayon.

I could see myself giving this a higher rating IF the beginning wasn't as awkward as it was. That's really the biggest, and maybe even only, reason why I can't give this above a 4.5. I can get past a couple of awkward scenes or developments throughout a book, but the first 25-30% of this book had some severe awkwardness in the development. At one point, it was super self-aware as a YA romance/new girl/bad boy story, and I literally had to put the book down I was laughing and cringing so hard. Maybe some people enjoy that, but the way that self-awareness was executed was like a punch in the face. It got so much better though after the beginning and I literally couldn't stop reading.

Spoilers Below

Plot:
One of the ways that this felt like an homage or a throwback to early/mid-10's YA was the setup. We got no parents (which hasn't faded out of YA, let's be honest), moving from a big warm city to small cold town, the bad boy in the school, the boarding school, angst. . . a classic recipe. I sort of saw the ending with Lia coming, but it was still gripping when the final scenes came about. And I'm really interested to get more information about where the hell Grace and Hudson are now, because that whole last chapter was kind of vague.

It's mostly all about Grace though and how she is almost killed multiple times for different reasons. Again, this is hella dramatic, but I was here for it. The different motivations were also interesting. Flint wanted her dead to save the world. Lia wanted her dead for revenge and to get love back. There are probably other people out there who want her dead just because. And NOW, she and Jaxon are officially together, so there's an extra target on top of the fact that, suprise!, she's actually not human. She's a gargoyle, which I'm so curious about now because we don't see any other gargoyles and apparent they're super rare. But her dad was a warlock, so was her mom a gargoyle in secret? What else can she do with her gargoyle-powers?

Speaking of creatures, I also really really really loved that there were dragons. I don't know why-- maybe I just loved Flint. But I also don't think dragons with human forms are ever really seen, at least not in YA lit. I just want to see more of them I think. Also, in the back of my mind, I keep spinning the scene between Flint and Grace in the library in my mind. What was that? Is that a ship?

Characters:
Grace:
Grace was pretty cool. My heart went out to her the most and I don't think we're done seeing her cope with the loss of her parents yet. Especially not with the bomb that Lia dropped at the end. I could totally see that revelation pop up at least one more time or haunt her in some way, even as things are going fast paced around her. Speaking of fast, I really loved seeing a YA character embrace and initiate a relationship that she's interested in. I know that she felt the ability to act on her feelings toward Jaxon because of what she learned from the accident, but I think that just shows a certain kind of growth for her character. I'm having trouble thinking of too many other YA books/characters where the female protagonist felt comfortable enough to show her interest in someone, even knowing she may get turned away.

Jaxon:
I love that Jaxon was the stereotypical bad guy warning the main character away with vague threats and comments. But then you peel back the curtain and he's actually all gushy inside and has a stellar moral compass that said bad-y refuses to acknowledge. Jaxon does have his issues. Like, he's a bit too assertive and temperamental, but I think Grace handles that well. The biggest thing I want to see from Jaxon is how he balances Grace being stone and the possibility of his brother coming back to wreck havoc on the world. I think... (and this is very speculative) he would want to take back the "hero" title he refused from Grace. I don't necessarily see him shutting Grace out of the Hudson-debacle, but I could totally see him raising his protectiveness up a dozen or hundred notches since Grace saved him.

An interlude:
One word- mates. I am TRAAAAAASH for a good mate-ship. I'm so beyond curious though as to how mates and those bonds work in this world. In Twilight for example, Bella is Edward's "mate," but it doesn't seem like a primordial spiritual bond between them. It's more like a marriage. That isn't what the mate thing sounds like in this one. This version of "mates" sounds a lot more like a Sarah J. Maas mating where you don't get a say in it. Like, it's there. Jaxon does mention something about Grace needing to accept the mating, but we don't how she would do that. Will it be like ACOTAR and she needs to offer him a bowl of soup or something? Whatever it is, we all know that Jaxon knows about the mate thing, and Grace knows about the mate thing, but neither character knows that the other knows. *UGH* Dramatic irony...

Flint:
So I know Flint tried to kill Grace, but I loved him and I'm glad Grace understood where he was coming from. Because it wasn't like he was trying to kill her for spite or power. He didn't even want to kill her, but he needed to. And before that, he was so kind to her, probably just to get close to her to kill her, but still. That moment in the hallway at the end makes me believe that he genuine does want to be friends with her. ALSO, I need someone else to tell me what they think of that adorable scene between them in the library. Because, while I love Jaxon and I'm 99% sure that's my ship, there's a tiny voice in the back of my head poking at that scene with the marshmallows. I don't know, but I think there is the small possibility of a love triangle even with the mate stuff going on.

Macy:
I want Macy to teach Grace some magic. :) I actually don't even know if that would ever be a thing because Grace is a gargoyle, but her dad was a warlock, so I'm just generally confused as to what that means for her. Macy is just such a sweet character though and I love how her bubbly energy lifts the mood of the story. Her earnestness and protectiveness makes her the perfect bff/family member for the story.

Lia:
Not gonna lie, I saw Lia being the bad guy pretty early on. I don't think it was poorly done or anything, but whenever she wanted Grace to drink some tea I just thought, "Nope. Don't drink the tea." It was like in horror movies when someone's about to go into the dark basement with no protection. You just know it's not going to be good. Lia's character was actually pretty sympathetic though, especially since we've now seen how attached Grace and Jaxon are to each other after only a week. So compare that to Lia and Hudson's relationship for like a year and I could totally see how she would be in that much pain over Hudson's death.

World:
I think I will always love a boarding school fantasy setup. I just will. It also made complete sense in my mind for this school to be in the middle of like a mountain in Alaska. It just all really worked for the scenery. HUGE question though: when was this edited??? I loved the pop music references because I knew them and I love "Put a Little Love On Me" by Niall Horan, but that came out early December. This came out two days ago. That's a four month turnaround for that song to get added in and I'm just sitting here like, huh...? Just a passing thought, that's all.

I think there's actually a lot more going on in this world than what we go to see in the book. Like, the casual mention that Jaxon is the vampire prince (because, of course) could lead to a lot of interesting exploration of the vampire politics. Grace is his mate, but she's not a vampire, or even human I guess. What does that mean for them? Are Jaxon's parents going to throw a hissy fit? Will Grace have to become a vampire? There's so many possibilities running through my head.

There's also the larger political relations between the different species(?). The DrAMa betwen the vampires and dragons for example. What's going to happen there? Are Jaxon and Flint going to fix their friendship? What would that mean for their species? Does each group have a "royal" family or something? Is there like a giant all-species summit once a year? How does this all work? I hope we get to see more of this in future books.

Crave is just what I was craving. (I'm not even sorry for that sentence, just accept it.) It was fun, it dramatic, it had magic and fantastical beings. . . it was great. Some weird moments to start with, but by the end I was shipping people, I was rooting for the characters, and I so badly want the next book. I would definitely recommend this one to pretty much everyone. I think people may sometimes need to remember to just enjoy a read. Enjoy the ride! It's so much fun!

WAIT! I just saw that Universal has already picked up the movie rights to this. Ummmmmmm.... what??? Holy ----. This really is the beginning of like a second Twilight wave. :):):)

Thanks for reading!