Blood and Chocolate
by Annette Curtis Klause
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Book Summary Information
Author: Annette Curtis KlauseEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-14
ISBN: 0385734212
Number of pages: 264
Publisher: Ember
Book Reviews of Blood and Chocolate
Book Review: Cliche and bad at the beginning, almost satisfying by the end, this is an inconstant, sub par book. Ambivalently recommended
Summary: 3 Stars
Vivian is a werewolf: young, attractive, just come of age, and proud to be a wolf. However, after the death of her father, her pack has been displaced and is in turmoil, making her feel estranged from the other wolves. When she meets a human boy named Aiden, romance sparks between them. He is a welcome change from the turmoil of her wolf life, but love between a human and a werewolf is forbidden and Vivian worries that Aiden will not be able to accept her completely. Blood and Chocolate is a very different coming of age story, in which Vivian must learn to completely accept herself as a wolf and learn the differences between the werewolf and the human. The plot is interesting, but the characters are exaggerated and idealized and the writing lacks skill, although improves during the course of the book. This is a text I would have preferred to keep on remembering fondly from my childhood; it does not make a very good reread for an adult audience. Ambivalently recommended.
There are some books from your childhood that you come back to, reread, and discover that they are as good as you remember or even better. There are other books from your childhood that turn out to be something of a disappointment, and this book is of that later category. Blood and Chocolate has a wonderful premise, but complications such as characterization and writing style drag the book down. The first half is bad, almost laughably so. The second half improves as characters become more complex and the writing matures, but all in all this is a book best left fondly remembered rather than reread.
For the first part of the text, the characters are cliché to a great degree; only with complications in the plot do they become more complex themselves. Vivian is devastatingly attractive with exceptionally long legs. She wears skin-tight dresses that "sheath" her form. She writes her phone number on Aiden's palm. Until the character falls into love and then begins to doubt her love, she is exceptionally limited, idealized, cliché, and laughably so for all qualities. The writing style also begins as limited and as cliché, rich with verbs like "sheath," cliff-hangers, thoughts in italics, and a brash neo-Gothic air. However, I suspect that the book was written linearly, because by the end the writing style has much matured and improved.
The improvement in both character and writing style makes the end of the book better, even satisfying, but it also makes the book as a whole feel disjointed. In fact, the end of the book is quite good, both in terms of the plot itself and Vivian's changes and challenges, and in terms of style and technique. On this account, I do somewhat recommend the book, as by the end it feels like a worthwhile read. However, the better the end of the book gets, the worse the beginning feels in comparison, making me wish that Klause and her editor had spent more time bring the whole of the book to a universal high standard. In the end, I recommend this text only ambivalently: it's not a bad one to read as young adult and the ending does help justify the time spend reading, but technically it is an inconsistent, sub par text. Read it if you want, or don't, but you may not want to come back to it if you had fond memories of it from your childhood.
Summary of Blood and Chocolate
Vivian Gandillon relishes the change, the sweet, fierce ache that carries her from girl to wolf. At sixteen, she is beautiful and strong, and all the young wolves are on her tail. But Vivian still grieves for her dead father; her pack remains leaderless and in disarray, and she feels lost in the suburbs of Maryland. She longs for a normal life. But what is normal for a werewolf?Then Vivian falls in love with a human, a meat-boy. Aiden is kind and gentle, a welcome relief from the squabbling pack. He's fascinated by magic, and Vivian longs to reveal herself to him. Surely he would understand her and delight in the wonder of her dual nature, not fear her as an ordinary human would.
Vivian's divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack. Moving between two worlds, she does not seem to belong in either. What is she really--human or beast? Which tastes sweeter--blood or chocolate?
From the Paperback edition.
Characterizing the adolescent experience as monstrous is not exactly a new idea. M.T. Anderson's woefully confused teen vampire in Thirsty and Jean Thesman's reluctant young witch in The Other Ones serve as excellent examples of this metaphor set to fiction. But no one really captures how our hormones make us howl as well as Annette Curtis Klause. Blood and Chocolate chronicles the longings and passions of one Vivian Gandillon, teenage werewolf. Her pack family, recently burned out of their West Virginia home by suspicious neighbors, has resettled in a sleepy Maryland suburb. At her new school, Viv quickly falls for sensitive heartthrob Aiden, a human--or "meat-boy," as her pack calls him. Soon she is trying to tame her undomesticated desires to match his more civilized sensibilities. "He was gentle. She hadn't expected that. Kisses to her were a tight clutch, teeth, and tongue... His eyes were shy beneath his dark lashes, and his lips curved with delight and desire--desire he wouldn't force on her... he was different." But Vivian's animal ardor cannot be stilled, and she must decide if she should keep Aiden in the dark about her true nature or invite him to take a walk on her wild side.
Klause poetically describes the violence and sensuality of the pack lifestyle, creating a hot-blooded heroine who puts the most outrageous riot grrrls to shame. Blood and Chocolate is a masterpiece of adolescent angst wrapped in wolf's clothing, and its lovely, sensuous taste is sure to be sweet on the teenage tongue. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert
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