In the second half of the 2000s, vampires were pretty popular in – mainly – young adult books. Series like Vampire Academy and Twilight had a huge fandom and remain popular ever since. Not long after the start of the new decade however, this hype fizzled out, and this creature was nowhere to be seen. Until this bloodsucker made a comeback several years ago. One of the products of this revival is Crave, the first book in the “Crave” series by Tracy Wolff. In this story, an ordinary mortal teenager has to pack up her entire life after the sudden death of her parents and move to a boarding school in the Alaskan mountains. Sounds familiar and like a good recipe for a lot of drama, right?

About the book

Crave by Tracy Wolff
Series: Crave #1
Published by Entangled on April 7, 2020
Pages: 571
ISBN: 9781640638952
Genres: Fantasy, Romantasy, Young adult
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

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.

My review

Before reading

Admittedly, my expectations for this reading experience weren’t too high. I actually picked up this book before but couldn’t be bothered to finish it. The language bugged me, and I think it just wasn’t the right time for me. I was straying away from YA at the time as well and this book is definitely a YA novel. Fast forward four years and I was in desperate need of quite a light read that didn’t involve much thinking. It’s my annual autumnal reading slump after all and I was struggling with another book. I wanted to at least finish something else this month, so I was opting for a second chance for this beloved series. Even though it succeeded in it’s purpose for me, I’m not solely positive about this book.

Characters

As Wolff solely tells this story from Grace’ POV, we get to know her properly. However, it stays superficial at best. It quickly becomes clear that Grace doesn’t really know how to act and that she mourns her parents and the loss of her old life in San Diego a lot. This leads her to keep herself guarded and as a result, coming off as distant. Because she doesn’t really open up to her fellow students, she barely connects to them and struggles to make friends. Grace is torn between her own gut feeling and what other people teach her about the academy. Whom can she trust? Gradually, Grace has to find her way and as a reader, you do this alongside her. The author therefore misleads you on multiple occasions. Unfortunately, exponential character growth remains absent for both Grace and the secondary characters. Especially the deeper layers of of Grace’ backstory are not optimally utilized.

Writing

The smooth writing makes it easy to continue reading. Even though this is a long book, the language is easy to understand which makes it a pretty accessible read for the less experienced reader. However, I wonder whether this book has longevity as lot of popular Gen Z and beyond language is used. The chapter titles could have been erased though as they don’t make any sense.

Plot

As this is a paranormal YA fantasy, the plot has to tick several boxes, which it does. There is romance, there is rivalry and there are secrets. There also is a lot of information, which is bombarded at both the reader and Grace simultaneously. As this is a huge amount of important information, this can be overwhelming at times. Grace’ discomfort therefore is very palpable. Nevertheless, this infodump stimulates curiosity, because you want to keep reading to find out what is going on and to figure out Jackson and his possible hidden agenda. This can’t withhold the book from being predictable though. This fits the genre and its purpose perfectly but doesn’t provide much excitement. Although the story gets to a climax close to the end, and has several exciting moments However, this excitement winds down quickly. Nevertheless, the ending manages to be compelling enough to be craving the next instalment in this series at some point.

Final thoughts

If you are looking for a good old – or not so old – paranormal vampire romance, Tracy Wolff’s Crave is exactly what you are looking for. It has all the late 2000s vibes, but this probably wouldn’t become such a huge classic as aforementioned popular series. The characters are too superficial for that, and the plot too thin. However, the author still manages to captivate me with all the secrets and hidden agendas, even though the plot fits the structure and formula of this genre perfectly. The ending is compelling enough to make me want to pick up the sequel, but not anytime soon.