Review: Crave by Melissa Darnell

Savannah Colbert has never known why she's so hated by the kids of the Clann. Nor can she deny her instinct to get close to Clann golden boy Tristan Coleman. Especially when she recovers from a strange illness and the attraction becomes nearly irresistible. It's as if he's a magnet, pulling her gaze, her thoughts, even her dreams. Her family has warned her to have nothing to do with him, or any members of the Clann. But when Tristan is suddenly everywhere she goes, Savannah fears she's destined to fail.

For years, Tristan has been forbidden to even speak to Savannah Colbert. Then Savannah disappears from school for a week and comes back…different, and suddenly he can't stay away. Boys seem intoxicated just from looking at her. His own family becomes stricter than ever. And Tristan has to fight his own urge to protect her, to be near her no matter the consequences….

A few things: I knew a lot of girls named Tristan growing up, so invariably, it was hard for me to remember Tristan was the boy in this whole thing, but whatever - clearly a personal issue I need to work out. 


Second, this book was looooong. Like, how-could-I-possibly-have-read-only-1%-of-this-book-during-a-45-minute-commute type of long. It does not compute... Frankly, I don't even think it need to be this long, there was a whole lot of this Savannah as dance team manager piece of the puzzle (which really isn't that critical), but whatever, I persevered because I didn't have a whole lot going on in my eHolds.

• Originality: 4 - this is sort of a Twilight slash vampire romance novel hybrid. It probably is more original than it felt, but I had felt like I had read this before somewhere else.
• Absurdity: 7 - I didn't find this absurd for a paranormal reason, but rather for the ridiculousness that is the ending. It's super brief in terms of the height of the action and simply seemed to have been concocted just to get a sequel out of it. Like the editor read it said, wow, this is hella long already, let's end with Chapter 10 and make Chapter 11-20 the second book. Not a bad idea, Editor, but may you could beef up the last 50 pages?
• Level of Paranormal Romance: 5 - the book tried really hard to make the Tristan/Savannah thing happen, but Savannah is very determined not to fall in love with him and, somehow, this sort of made me feel like they never did. It was meh.
• Level of Harry Potterness:  3 - um, just no.

On to the next!