Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. Teenaged werewolf coming of age story. Spoilers.
I picked this book up because someone had seen fit to adapt it into a movie and it was cheap.
And hey, it didn’t suck! I was ready for fraught situations and terribly difficult choices between family and a lover. I got that and a bit more.
Vivian is a loup garoux – a werewolf. She’s 16 and attractive as both a wolf and a girl. Her whole pack has recently relocated because their cover was blown in their previous home. Her father was the pack leader but has died. The pack is in turmoil, a new alpha male and female must be chosen and certain members of the pack are agitating for a more aggressive stance towards the local human population. The plot revolves around the mystery of human deaths in the area Vivian’s pack has moved to. Did one of her pack murder them? Could Vivian herself be killing humans and not know it?
Vivian meets a meat boy (a human) at her new school and is attracted to him. She pursues a relationship with him. At the same time she is negotiating her place within the pack and dealing with the death of her father. Vivian is going through the typical teenage experience. She is finding an identity of her own among her family and peer groups. She is going through an infatuation and trying to turn it into a relationship. It’s all just a little more complicated because she’s supernatural creature.
Vivian wants her relationship with Aiden, the human boy, to work out. Everyone in her pack tells her it’s a bad idea. Gabriel, the new alpha male of her pack, wants her to be his alpha female. It was at this point that I really started to love Vivian. She wants Aiden to love all of her, wolf and girl. She knows that she is a pretty girl and a beautiful wolf and she wants to have a truthful relationship with Aiden so she shows him her wolf self. That’s a mature and bold decision for a teen-aged girl and I respected it.
SPOILER: It totally backfires and Aiden is not only horrified he starts to plot to kill her to put her out of her lycanthropic misery. Vivian is miserable as she wonders why the stupid meat boy doesn’t appreciate how beautiful she is. She becomes literally trapped halfway between a wolf and a girl, her body stuck between the two forms as she struggles emotionally. Gabriel, the alpha, helps her break out of the stalemate. He shows her that there are people who can appreciate every aspect of her without being frightened. There is nothing wrong with her, Aiden just isn’t right for her.
The lessons of the books are great. You should be true to yourself and honest with your partner. You should want a relationship based on mutual interests and respect and if your partner isn’t in to all of you, find someone who is.
If you want to read a paranormal young adult book you could do way worse than this one, especially if you are an impressionable adolescent *coughstephaniemeyersuckscough*.
-fh