Crave

By: Jamie Steinberg

Cliché. Sadly, that is the perfect word to summarize the new book Crave by author Tracy Wolff. The new YA thriller follows Grace, a teenager who has just lost her parents and is headed from San Diego to the wilds of Alaska to live with her uncle. Her uncle though just happens to be the headmaster of a school for supernatural creatures. Grace walks into the school unaware of the magical beings residing there. Immediately she finds guidance by cousin Macy and also love in the form of the biggest bad boy on campus. While Wolff does her best to make the series standout from its predecessor Twilight, the fast finding of romance and the all too familiar fish out of water in a sci-fi setting makes this book unable to find its own footing.

Upon arriving at Katmere Acamedy our heroine Grace is led to her room by bestie/cousin Macy. While Macy is busy bringing in Grace’s bags, our leading lady has a run-in with handsome and brooding Jaxon Vega. He’s angsty, aloof, brooding, contrary and hella handsome…much like Edward Cullen when we first met him. He’s also a vampire. After a bought of altitude sickness, Grace ends up having several run-ins with some of school’s troublemakers. She also makes a pal in Macy’s buddy Flint, whom we later find out is actually a dragon. Yep, there are witches, dragons and wolf shifters at Katmere.

Unfortunately, Grace isn’t able to make herself at home very quickly before one thing after another happens putting her peril. There is a snowball fight that goes awry. New “friends” that may actually be enemies. Oh, and did I mention how Grace finds herself warned against spending time with Jaxon yet can’t bring herself not to try and crack his hard-outer shell? Just as Bella has gone before her, Grace also learns that the man she loves (yes, loves within a week’s time) is a vampire and has no qualms about it. She doesn’t balk at all at the possibility of having a romantic relationship with someone who isn’t alive. While, yes, it’s sweet to see that Jaxon isn’t as cold hearted as his vampiric condition would imply; however, his nature still puts a target on her back.

Author Tracy Wolff is good at giving her characters authentic teenage angst, but the pace of Crave moves along too quickly. Grace arrives at the school and the next minute her life is at risk. She then immediately jumps into trusting the bad boy, feeling as though his tough exterior is based on the scar he wears on his face. Also, her uncle has kept her in the dark from the supernatural lives he helps educate and yet Grace takes the news about her fellow students in stride. Sure, she’s in a remote area of Alaska and without other family members so she has no where to run. Regardless, the intake seems to go over rather smoothly than someone seriously being told this life altering information.

Needless to say, for those of you who fell hard for Edward and Bella back in the day you will probably be quick to find a fondness for this modern day telling of Twilight. Crave finds readers once more back in the Alaskan wilderness with all kinds of creatures causing mayhem with the innocent human stuck in the middle. If that’s something that appeals to you, grab a copy. If you’ve made it past the times of the Cullen craze, you’ll find yourself craving Crave.