Blood and Chocolate

title: Blood and Chocolate
author: Annette Curtis Klause
how I read it: print book from the library

Vivian is a werewolf. Her pack – hard-partying, hard-living, dangerous and wild – lives in the human world but also apart from them. As the only female teenager in the pack, Vivian is a bit isolated. While she grew up playing and roughhousing with The Five – five young males of about the same age as her – now that they are no longer children, the energy between them has changed. She misses her father who died not long ago, and she and her mother have a volatile, changeable relationship. Vivian longs for something more; and she believes that she has found it in Aidan, a human (“meat-boy”) that she meets at school.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced book. The story was unpredictable and exciting. It drew me in and kept me turning pages until the very end. I was especially fascinated by the depiction of werewolves as both violent and sensual animals.

While there were no explicit sex scenes, this book is very sexually charged. Sex and power are inextricably linked, and Vivian has absolutely no qualms about using her sexuality as a tool. I have to admit that some of the messages in this book about love and sex left me feeling very uncomfortable. The ending, in particular, left me feeling unsettled. Don’t get me wrong; I have absolutely no problems with sexuality in young adult novels. Sexuality is such a huge part of adolescence that it would be utterly naive to omit it. But after reading this book, I was left wondering about the author’s intent. I can’t really discuss my thoughts here beyond that without spoiling the book, but I’d be very happy to discuss further with anyone through email.

Despite these issues with the book, I really enjoyed the story and especially Vivian’s character. While she is not always likeable and I couldn’t always relate to her, she is an extremely strong female character. She knows what she wants, and she is fully confident in her ability to get it. She has both human characteristics – longing, loneliness – and wild, feral werewolf qualities that meld together to create an extremely interesting character.

This book made me want to: run really, really fast.

Verdict: a tight, compelling read. I do think that this book should be previewed by parents and discussed afterwards with younger teens.

Sequels: nope! This is a standalone book.

The Darkest Powers

title: The Darkest Powers trilogy (The Summoning, The Awakening, The Reckoning)
author: Kelley Armstrong
how I read it: all bundled up nicely in one thick book. Since I read it as one book, I’m going to review it as one book! But I’ll only summarize the very first bit, so as not to spoil the story for anyone wanting to read it.

15-year-old Chloe is frightened and confused by the visions that have been plaguing her. She sees people and things that aren’t there, people and things that terrify her but that nobody else can see. Quickly labeled as mentally ill and shipped off to a live-in youth centre, Chloe is determined to prove that she doesn’t belong there. As she learns more about the centre and the other young teens who live there, she starts to understand that there is something far more dangerous and sinister going on beneath the surface than she thought at first.

The ideas behind this book are not new. Supernatural powers show up in adolescence, kids are misunderstood and sent away, people want to control them and their powers, and there’s a classic battle of good against evil (or at least power-hungry). Youth going up against an unfair adult system is a recurring theme in young adult fantasy and science fiction, and this book is no different. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable! Sometimes the same themes show up in books time and time again because they’re entertaining, they’re exciting or they make us think. This is, first and foremost, a story about struggling to find yourself in a world that you don’t quite fit into. It’s about fighting against an unfair adult organization that is much stronger than you are.

The Darkest Powers has an obligatory teenage angst love triangle. I don’t have anything against love triangles, so long as they aren’t forced and unbelievable. This one was refreshingly believable and it wasn’t quite so obvious who Chloe would choose in the end. I found myself rooting for all of the three main characters in the book; no one is perfect, but they are all likeable. The love triangle in the book is important and yet almost peripheral to the story, which made it all the more enjoyable.

This is a light, fun read. There are some dark bits, but this wasn’t a book that made me squirm. The pacing is great and the writing flows smoothly. This trilogy won’t change the way that you look at the world, but you’ll have a lot of fun reading it!

This book made me want to: learn to draw comics.

Verdict: a fun read, perfect for summer vacation.

Sequels: the three books can be purchased individually or bound together. I know that Armstrong wrote some other books in the same universe, so I'll be looking for them.