Blog Tour (Review + Playlist): Crave (Crave #1) by Tracy Wolff

Crave is the start of a new YA vampire series that you don’t want to miss. It has a few familiar aspects to long-time vampire fans while still being its own thing.

Thank you for Fantastic Flying Book Club for allowing me to be a part of this blog tour! Check out my review and a fan-made playlist for Crave.

Title: Crave
Author: Tracy Wolff
Genre: YA Paranormal
Publication Date: April 7, 2020
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Rating:

I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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.

Crave follows Grace, sent to live with her uncle and cousin in Alaska after her parents’ tragic death. Shortly after settling in, Grace starts classes at Katmere Academy, where her uncle, Finn, is the headmaster and her cousin, Macy, also attends. Katmere Academy, however, is not a normal school. Grace is about to enter a world filled with creatures she didn’t know existed.

I’ll start off with addressing any comparisons to Twilight, since it’s been hailed as “the new Twilight.” While there are some similarities at the beginning– e.g. moving to a new town and aloof vampire that tries to stay away from the main character —Crave is very much its own thing.

For starters, unlike Twilight, Crave is funny! Right from the start, you can see this in the chapter titles. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book with chapter titles. While the have faded out of fashion in YA, I actually love chapter titles. The chapter titles serve as a little teaser of the chapter and reveal a lot about the characters. We see a lot of this humor on the page and in dialogue, as well. There’s even a scene where Grace tells Jaxon a– albeit bad– knock-knock joke. I’m a sucker for puns, though, so I liked the joke!

Another aspect of Crave that I really liked was the family dynamics. I was weary that this would be another story in which the family would either be absent or painted in a negative light. I was pleasantly surprised that Grace had a good relationship with her uncle and Macy. I think it’s especially important given that Grace moved to Alaska because of her parent’s death. Seeing that her uncle and Macy providing support for her helped me gain more empathy for Grace and her situation.

One critique, however, is the insta-attraction between Grace and Jaxon. I would have preferred that they had spent more time getting to know each other, maybe even being platonic friends, prior to exploring romantic feelings. This wasn’t a big point of contension for me, though, since their relationship does get fleshed out as Crave progresses.

Grace is an independent, fierce, and humorous character and I had a lot of fun reading from her perspective. I enjoyed that Grace actually questioned what was going on, even before she came to find out what it was. There is also a lot of sass and banter between Grace and Jaxon, which I lived for!

The only other aspect that I had any qualms about is the length of the book. While I understand that it takes time to set up the layers of conflict, context, and relationships, it could have been done without making Crave such a long book. Crave is still an engaging read, but it is by no means a “quick” read at over 500 pages.

Crave is a story filled with secrets, plot twists, and “creatures that bump in the night.” There’s an underlying thread of darkness and mystery in Crave, but it also has some levity and humor, which provides a good balance. It will keep you entertained till the end.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Tracy Wolff wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—in second grade, around the same time she forayed into the wonderful world of girls lit with her first Judy Blume novel. By ten she’d read everything in the young adult and classics sections of her local bookstore, so in desperation her mom started her on romance novels. And from the first page of the first book, Tracy knew she’d found her life-long love. A one-time English professor with over fifty novels to her name, she now devotes most of her time to writing romance and dreaming up heroes. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her family.

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