Synopsis via
goodreads. 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?
This paranormal
romance took me no time to finish. I believe I read it over the course of three
nights, making it a perfect selection for reluctant teen readers. The size is
about 260 pages so it would not frighten lower level readers to check it out
from the library. I will say that this title is for your older teens, not
middle school readers.
Blood
and Chocolate
was released in 1997, a good eight years before Twilight was published. Yet, I had never heard of it until college
(circa 2007) where one of my best friends said it was her favorite book. When
she discovered there was a movie, we ran to Blockbuster to rent it and we lay
about in her dorm room watching it. When I read this book just a few days ago, I
kept thinking how the movie was nothing like the book. Like not at all. It even
had a different setting! This led to an ending that was a lot more surprising
than I originally anticipated. That
being said, it is a paranormal romance so there are some typical characteristics
to be on the lookout. All in all, I liked it.
What I liked:
-Vivian in some
ways. I liked her confidence and general bad ass attitude. She also protected
her mother and Aiden from antics of the pack, which I think made a bit more endearing. She
didn’t seem like a placeholder or Mary Sue character that many paranormal
romances tend write as their female lead; however, she did have flaws as I will mention
later.
-Female werewolf
perspective. I appreciated this because some of my favorite books from this
challenge have been paranormal stories where we have the female protagonist as
the witch or angel or what-have-you. Perhaps I enjoy the character development
and growth in that scenario? The female protagonist realizes her strength to save the day. This is more pleasant, as opposed to having the female be mere mortal
while trying to get the immortal gentleman to court her.
-Not quite the
ending I anticipated. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but Vivian does not end
up in the situation I originally guessed. It was nice surprise.
What I didn’t
like:
-Vivian in other
ways. She was way too obsessed with her looks and frankly, she just seemed
mean-spirited and manipulative. For
example, the way she treated Aiden in some ways felt like he was a cute toy to
mess with. Though she changes in some ways later, I still think she was too obsessed
with her beauty and not her heart.
-Most of the
secondary characters. In this case, I didn’t like Esme, Vivian’s mother, nor
did I like Aiden, especially at the end. Gabriel grew on me towards the finish,
but he started off so sketchy.
In general, this
was a nice, action-packed read. I am mad
that I read this after reading the Twilight
series. I felt like throughout the whole read all I did was compare the two,
which really isn’t fair to Blood and
Chocolate because it came out first.
Bottom line, my
recommendation is to get this book if paranormal romances are still popular
with your youth. Let’s face it, that statement is probably true so just get
this title for your collection.
That’s 19 down, 31
more to go.
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