Crave is a book I’ve seen everywhere since right before it released in April 2020. I’ve heard a lot of people say you either love or hate this book, so I definitely was curious. The release of the third book a few weeks ago definitely had me wanting to see what the hype was all about. So a friend and I decided to do a buddy read. Keep on reading to find out what I thought! Was I on team love it or hate it?
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.
Review
Twilight was a book that got me back to reading YA again, so when this was called this generation’s Twilight it definitely caught my attention. I love a good vampire story! I have to say the hype had me hesitant for quite some time. Normally when books are so popular I normally end up enjoying them less than I would if it wasn’t so much. The friend I was reading this called Crave a train wreck and I think that’s a good description, because even though it’s nuts and a bit too much at times you just can’t look away.
The main character Grace recently lost both of her parents in an accident and her uncle brings her to Alaska to live with him and her cousin at the boarding school he runs. Just reading the beginning of this book I don’t know if I’d be able to do it. I don’t do cold well and let’s just say this sounded like the extreme conditions I wouldn’t do well in. The boarding school was described and I have to say it sounds like an amazing place to live. I’d love to explore that library! That’s every book lover’s dream and the librarian sounds like an amazing person.
The plot is definitely a bit crazy. It’s clear from the start something is up at this school, but it seems like it’s been determined to keep Grace in the dark. She even mentions a few times that something feels off and that people are hiding things from her. I would too if I was almost killed a few times during my first week of school. There were so many chances to give poor Grace a heads up and I remember yelling at the book to just tell her already, haha. Also, a lot of the mystery elements are easy to spot from a hundred miles away. The twist and turns in this book were actually pretty predictable and if you kept your attention focused while reading the hints were hard to miss.
“𝑴𝒆: 𝑼𝒈𝒉. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒌
𝑱𝒂𝒙𝒐𝒏: 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒐 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒂 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉”
Also, Crave has something I despise: instalove! Grace is at the school for a few days and is already madly in love with Jaxon (the bad boy) and even half dead she jumps out of bed to see if he’s okay. It was all just a bit much. Don’t get me wrong, I have a feeling Jaxon would be a character I’d come to love it just wasn’t so over the top. I need more of a build up and slow burn to the relationships in some books.
That being said, Crave gave me a lot of the nostalgia I was looking for a in a YA vampire book. I love the pop references and the feel for this book. The chapter titles had me laughing and I hope we continue to get those throughout the series. Some of the side characters were fun and I’m really hoping they’re wrong about one of them, but only reading Crush will get me my answers! I know I definitely had some issues with this one and I don’t know if I would continue reading by myself, but this book was so much fun to talk about while reading. I can’t wait to see where this train wreck goes!
That was definitely an interesting read. I have two books to go and I’m curious to see where this train wreck will go. Have you read Crave yet? Let me know what you thought in the comments. I’d love to hear from you! Keep an eye on the blog if you want to know what I think of Crush. My review will be up in a couple of weeks.