Jealous Haters Book Club: Crave chapter 3 “Vampire Queens Aren’t the Only Ones with a Nasty Bite”

Um.

Hmm.

Uh.

Okay.

Where last we left our heroine, she’s just met the guy who’s definitely going to be her love interest. And that’s…

That’s all that happens in this chapter.

I don’t know what happened.

This author is a good writer. This book has been interesting so far.

And then chapter three happened and my worldview has been shattered.

I’m going to start this off with a disclaimer: I’m going to talk about the publisher, editor, and another series published by this publishing house. I would very much appreciate that none of these parties contact me. Especially not on my home phone. Again.

So, Grace had picked up a chess piece that looks like a vampire and the love interest says it has a nasty bite.

“Who’s got a nasty bite?”

He reaches past me and picks up the piece I dropped, holds the queen for me to see. “She’s really not very nice.”

I stare at him. “She’s a chess piece.”

His obsidian eyes gleam back. “Your point?”

“My point is, she’s a chess piece. She’s made of marble. She can’t bite anyone.”

That is going to be an unfortunate eye description choice by the end of this recap. But we can’t let this passage go because it’s the first in a veritable avalanche of hints that this is a school for vampires that ends up making Grace an official Too Stupid To Live heroine.

Alphole Smartass Jr., which is what I’m calling him now (middle-aged writers, you get it), misquotes Hamlet to Grace, saying “there are more things in heaven and hell,” rather than “there are more things in heaven and earth” and he mocks her.

“I think I like my version better.”

“Even though it’s wrong?”

“Especially because it’s wrong.”

So, we’ve got dark hair, amazing cheekbones, and enough arrogance to power a Ferris Wheel if we could somehow convert needlessly inflated male self-esteem to electricity. Bad news! It’s a renewable energy source!

Grace thinks about how much she wants to get away from Alphole Smartass Jr., the number one quality one wants in a meet-cute.

Because the longer I stand here, the more I realize this guy is as terrifying as he is intriguing.

I’m not sure which is worse. And I’m growing less sure by the second that I want to find out.

“Terrifying” is always how one should describe a love interest. Especially in a book touted as “feminist.”

“I need to go.” I force the words past a jaw I didn’t even know I’d been clenching.

“Yeah, you do.” He takes a small step back, nods toward the common room Macy and I just walked through. “The door’s that way.”

It’s not the response I’m expecting, and it throws me off guard. “So what, I shouldn’t let it hit me on the way out?”

He shrugs. “As long as you leave this school, it doesn’t matter to me if it hits you or not. I warned your uncle you wouldn’t be safe here, but he obviously doesn’t like you much.”

He clearly knows why Grace is there…so he tells her that one of her two last surviving family members doesn’t care about her enough to keep her safe?

Now, I know we’re treading across very, very familiar ground here when I point out that “safety” is a red flag. What does it matter? He doesn’t know her. He clearly doesn’t care about her feelings. But he feels possessive enough after some aggressive banter to verbally abuse her to keep her “safe”.

From a foreshadowing perspective:

Scary gothic school in the middle of nowhere
Brooding, intense, black-eyed guy
Warning about a vampire chess piece biting
Warning about not being safe in the school

It took Bella Swann like one inciting incident to go, “Maybe I should google vampires.”

“Who exactly are you supposed to be anyway? Katmere’s very own unwelcome wagon?”

“Unwelcome wagon?” His tone is as obnoxious as his face. “Believe me, this is the nicest greeting you’re going to get here.”

“This is it, huh?” I raise my brows, spread my arms out wide. “The big welcome to Alaska?”

“More like, welcome to hell. Now get the fuck out.”

Everything we’ve seen so far has indicated that Tracy Wolff is a much better writer than this. Let me propose a theory that I have. Again, just a theory, I’m not saying this is exactly what happened. This is not an accusation. This is pure speculation. But I have suspicions that Wolff either didn’t write this or it was heavily tinkered with by the editor, Liz Pelletier.

Entangled’s other big hit series, Roswell Lux featured a tall, dark, obnoxious hero who insulted the heroine and acted like a dickhead to her for what he decided was her own good. Now, Crave is much, much, much better written than that series. However, this is also incredibly similar to the meeting between the hero and heroine of that series. I should know; before the author was revealed to be a succubus, I stanned those books so hard (though in hindsight, having just compared these scenes to make sure I wasn’t misremembering, I couldn’t stand the hero anymore). I felt like I was having flashbacks.

Now, am I accusing Tracy Wolff of ripping off the rip-off queen? Absolutely not. But here are three things I know for sure:

Liz Pelletier edited both books; she actually came up with Lux and asked the succubus to write it.
Liz Pelletier has been trying her ass off to get an Entangled book made into a movie.
The movie deal for Lux fell through.

Here is what I, again, merely theorize happened: When Crave slid onto her desk, Liz, seeking to recapture the magic of the early 10s YA scene, saw an opportunity to resurrect the characters that Melinda Metz she dreamed up for Roswell Lux and rekindle the relationship spark that made Roswell Lux so popular.

I think Pelletier either wrote this scene herself or heavily influenced the writing of it, not realizing that YA has moved past the “I hate you/I love you/let me fix you” plotlines that dominated it in the early ’10s.

And while I am so, so fucking furious to have to do this, I have principles, okay. Principles do not bend or alter just because a lying succubus is the author whose work is in need of defending. I feel like this scene skirts way, way too close to Katy and Daemon from the succubus’s books. All we need is one insulting and unwanted pet name for the heroine that the hero keeps using for no apparent reason (how did that not drive me up a frickin’ wall when I first read it?!).

And the banter. THE BANTER. This entire chapter is only this particular conversation. That means it’s extra short. Gotcha! It’s not short at all! It’s eight god damn pages of Grace being sassy yet irresistibly drawn to this guy who she thinks is an asshole but can’t help herself from being attracted to and who wants to keep her far away for her own good.

Eight god damn pages.

Wanna know what everyone loved about Katy and Daemon in Lux?

It was the super clever banter. That in hindsight wasn’t terribly clever but it’s what people loved, okay? Stop judging me, it was a long time ago. Everybody makes mistakes.

But I just can’t believe in my heart of hearts that the believable teen heroine we’ve spent a prologue and two chapters with would suddenly come out with:

“Is it that stick up your ass that makes you such a jerk?” I demand. “Or is this just your regular, charming personality?”

In your mind, imagine literally any character on The Big Bang Theory delivering that insult. Put the laugh track in. You can see it, right? You can see how grindingly dull and unimaginative this eight page conversation is gonna be.

Just so I don’t have to paste the whole damn chapter in here, I’m going to just confirm without direct quote that yes, he absolutely has been smirking and the word smug has for sure been used to describe him. He tells Grace point-blank that someone is going to eat her.

“Seriously? That’s what you decided to go with?” I roll my eyes. “Bite me, dude.”

Get it? Because he’s a vampire? And also because teenagers totally say, “bite me, dude,” all the time these days.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” He looks me up and down. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t even make an appetizer.”

But then he’s stepping closer, leaning down until he’s all but whispering in my ear. “Maybe a quick snack, though.” His teeth close with a loud, sharp snap that makes me jump and shiver all at the same time.

Which I hate…so, so much.

Awesome because me, too. I also hate this. I hate that he’s violating her personal space to intimidate and threaten her and I hate that it’s being used to show how apparently sexy this dude is.

But let’s go back to Grace being Too Stupid To Live:

Scary gothic school in the middle of nowhere
Brooding, intense, black-eyed guy
Warning about a vampire chess piece biting
Warning about not being safe in the school
Warning that someone will eat her
Possibly brooding guy, who hasn’t ruled it out

MISS I AM SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT VAMPIRES.

As this conflict is going on, people walking by are conspicuously ignoring both Grace and Alphole Smartass Jr.

[…] “What is wrong with you?” I mean, seriously. He’s got the manners of a rabid polar bear.

“Got a century or three?” His smirk is back—he’s obviously proud of getting to me—and for a moment, just a moment, I think about how satisfying it would be to punch him right in the center of that annoying mouth of his.

Get it? Centuries? Because he’s a vampire?

Look, Grace. This guy isn’t just a vampire. He is the Hannibal Lecter of vampires, in terms of the shitty obvious puns he keeps dropping for you to pick up on. How are you not getting any of this?

“You know what? You really don’t have to be such a—”

“Don’t tell me what I have to be. Not when you don’t have a clue what you’ve wandered into here.”

Then tell her.

“Oh no!” I do a mock-afraid face. “Is this the part of the story where you tell me about the big, bad monsters out here in the big, bad Alaskan wilderness?”

“No, this is the part of the story where I show you the big, bad monsters right here in this castle.”

GRACE PLEASE PAY ATTENTION:

Scary gothic school in the middle of nowhere
Brooding, intense, black-eyed guy
Warning about a vampire chess piece biting
Warning about not being safe in the school
Warning that someone will eat her
Possibly brooding guy, who hasn’t ruled it out
Warning that there are actual monsters in the school

Even though Grace has stepped back to put distance between them, he gets super close to her again because of course, he does. And she gets all fluttery because he’s so close to her because of course, she does.

I hate that he’s bested me, and I hate that being this close to him makes me feel a bunch of things I shouldn’t for a guy who has been a total jerk to me. I hate even more that the look in his eyes says he knows exactly how I’m feeling.

Maybe I’m just seeing things that aren’t there but I’m pretty sure other people who’ve read the Lux series (may God have mercy on your souls) have to see how similar-but-not-identical this is to the first few interactions with Katy Daemon.

There’s more of Alphole Smartass Jr. being a disgusting, predatory creep:

The fact that I’m reacting so strongly to him when all he seems to feel for me is contempt is humiliating, so I take one trembling step back. Then I take another. And another.

But he follows suit, moving one step forward for every step I take backward, until I’m caught between him and the chess table pressing into the back of my thighs. And even though there’s nowhere to go, even though I’m stuck right here in front of him, he leans closer still, gets closer still, until I can feel his warm breath on my cheek and the brush of his silky black hair against my skin.

This exact interaction happened with Katy and Daemon, except he backed her into a tree while he acted tough and scary.

It’s okay, though! Alphole Smartass Jr. was just reaching for a chess piece.

This one is fierce, eyes narrowed, talons raised, mouth open to show off sharp, jagged teeth. But it’s still just a chess piece. “I’m not afraid of a three-inch dragon.”

“Yeah, well, you should be.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not.”

It’s just going on and on with the back and forth to the point that I wouldn’t be surprised to turn the page and see “Nuh-uh!” “Nuh-huh!” This just doesn’t track with what we’ve read so far; it was so much better up until this point. The story went places. Things were interesting. Now, it’s just a creepy dude getting too touchy with a grieving orphan who apparently found her new and very specific kink.

There’s a big chunk of breathless explanation about just how thrilling and sexy-but-infuriating his closeness is, to the point that she ends up actually leaning back over the table to get away from him because he’s got her basically trapped. Then, because it’s not a threatening question to ask someone when you’ve been blocking their escape and staring silently into their eyes for, quote, “twenty-five seconds,” he wants to know what she’s afraid of.

Images of my parents’ mangled car flash through my brain, followed by pictures of their battered bodies. I was the only family they had in San Diego—or anywhere, really, except for Finn and Macy—so I’m the one who had to go to the morgue. I’m the one who had to identify their bodies. Who had to see them all bruised and bloody and broken before the funeral home had a chance to put them back together again.

Because this is such a good, evocative, actually insightful look into Grace’s characterization and backstory, I hate to nitpick this. But I’m going to because I care a lot about death and all the death industries, and as a result, I’ve reached out to people with experience in these areas, as well as casual death fans, to find out how likely this scenario is.

Not very.

Now, why am I not going, “Okay, creative license,” in this case? Because it’s actually based on super harmful misconceptions around post-death investigations. While procedures vary from state to state, here’s what my research has yielded:

In many places, a minor child cannot legally identify a body.
In most cases, identification of a body is done with photographs, not at the morgue drawer as we see in movies.
In cases of extreme disfiguration, families are asked to identify intact parts and spared the sight of the deceased’s gruesome injuries.
In cases where they can’t get around the family seeing the injury or disfigurement, morgue staff does everything they can to make sure the body is as clean and presentable as possible or does the photo thing mentioned above.

We tend to see morgues in movies as dark, cold, sometimes dirty, definitely unfeeling places where everyone is callous and gruff and doesn’t give a shit about the grief that families experience or the trauma these types of viewings can create. That’s why I’m mentioning it. It would have been more logical and honestly, would probably pack more of a punch if she’d been in the car with them, survived, but remembered the gruesome details that way.

Now, back to Alphole Smartass Jr. and his question about what she’s afraid of.

“Not much,” I tell him as flippantly as I can manage. “There’s not much to be afraid of when you’ve already lost everything that matters.”

Bam. You’re not going to scare her because the worst-case scenario has already happened. Which, by the way, is a journey I love for Grace.

Until this happens in the next paragraph:

He freezes at my words, his whole body tensing up so much that it feels like he might shatter. Even his eyes change, the wildness disappearing between one blink and the next until only stillness remains.

Stillness and an agony so deep I can barely see it behind the layers and layers of defenses he’s erected.

But I can see it. More, I can feel it calling to my own pain.

This is where Grace starts to rationalize why it’s okay for this kid to behave this way. It’s his pain. She understands him. They’re connected.

Instead, we stand there, frozen. Devasted. Connected in a way I can feel but can’t comprehend by our very separate horrors.

I don’t know how long we stay like that, staring into each other’s eyes. Acknowledging each other’s pain because we can’t acknowledge our own.

Long enough for the animosity to drain right out of me.

And just like, she’s no longer got a problem with a guy who has invaded her personal space, snarled at her to get the fuck out, told her that her only remaining family doesn’t care about her, and threatened to bite her. Because she can see the pain that totally justifies his behavior.

That picture is honestly the best stock photo purchase I’ve ever made. I get so much use out of it.

Now that we know it’s okay for this guy to be super confrontational, aggressive, and threatening to women, it’s time to know how dreamy this whole interaction is:

Long enough for me to see the silver flecks in the midnight of his eyes—distant stars shining through the darkness he makes no attempt to hide.

She sees past his hardened outer surface to the cosmic wonder of his soul or whatever?

Five minutes ago, this guy was being a total douche to me. And now…now I don’t know anything. Except that I need space. And to sleep. And a chance to just breathe for a few minutes.

Grace tries to push him away and even asks him, “Please,” but he waits a little bit, toying with her hair before he takes a step back.

THE FEMINIST TWILIGHT Y’ALL

Just in case we didn’t already get that it’s totally okay for him to treat our heroine this way, we gotta throw in physical tragedy. He has a scar that runs from his eyebrow to the corner of his mouth. She didn’t notice it at first because his hair was in the way and also he’s so, so pale.

Scary gothic school in the middle of nowhere
Brooding, intense, black-eyed guy
Warning about a vampire chess piece biting
Warning about not being safe in the school
Warning that someone will eat her
Possibly brooding guy, who hasn’t ruled it out
Warning that there are actual monsters in the school
WOW THIS GUY IS SUPER PALE WEIRD HUH

It should make him less attractive, should do something—anything—to negate the incredible power of his looks. But somehow the scar only emphasizes the danger, turning him from just another pretty boy with angelic looks into someone a million times more compelling. A fallen angel with a bad-boy vibe for miles…and a million stories to back that vibe up.

Yeah, I feel like this is exactly what Liz Pelletier ordered. To make sure, I’m going to read another of Tracy Wolff’s books because she’s a good writer and I just don’t want to believe that someone who could deliver those first two chapters was solely responsible for whatever the shit this is. I have purchased Royal Treatment for two reasons: I like royal romances and this wasn’t published by Entangled. While browsing her titles, I was reminded that she’s done a lot of books for Entangled. I want to read something Entangled didn’t put their hands on so I can judge fairly. Because at this point, based on the titles I’ve read from Entangled Teen, bully heroes seem to be house style.

I’ll report back.

A scar like this only comes from an unimaginable injury. Hundreds of stitches, multiple operations, months—maybe even years—of recovery. I hate that he suffered like that, wouldn’t wish it on anyone, let alone this boy who frustrates and terrifies and excites me all at the same time.

Leaving aside the part where she’s just met this dude and all he’s done is bully her but she’s got all these deep feelings for him within something like five minutes of lukewarm banter that feels grossly out of character, it did make me laugh when I read, “A scar like this only comes from an unimaginable injury,” because I was like…well, duh. You don’t get it as a prize for winning the spelling bee. Unless the spelling bee in your town is super competitive.

Of course, now that she’s noticed the scar, he hides it with his shaggy hair.

I hate that, hate that he thinks he has to hide something that he should wear as a badge of honor. It takes a lot of strength to get through something like this, a lot of strength to come out the other side of it, and he should be proud of that strength. Not ashamed of the mark it’s left.

What if he got it because he was breaking into somebody’s house to steal their prescription medication but the owners were home and he had to kill one of them and glass from the window cut his face as he escaped? Should he be proud of that?

That isn’t a nitpick or criticism, by the way. I just went on a mind journey and took you all along with me.

He just stands there and lets me stroke my thumb back and forth across his cheek—across his scar—for several long moments.

This is another bandera roja, my pals. This is incredibly intimate, and though at this point she’s doing the invading of space, he initiated the inappropriate intimacy by backing her over the table.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he closes his eyes, sinks into my palm, takes one long, shuddering breath.

Then he’s pulling back, stepping away, putting real distance between us for the first time since he snuck up behind me, which suddenly feels like a lifetime ago.

Advance, retreat. Advance, retreat. The battle strategy of an abuser.

He tells her that he doesn’t understand her, and she repeats his misquoted Shakespeare at him. He once again tries to tell her to leave, and she points out that she can’t do that because her parents died. Alphole Smart Jr. admits to already knowing, confirming that he made the crack about her family not caring with the full knowledge that she’s just gone through this trauma.

Since he hasn’t driven her away from the school by all but ripping his shirt off and sparkling at her to get his point across, he leaves her with an ominous warning.

“Keep your head down. Don’t look too closely at anyone or anything.” He leans forward, his voice dropping to a low rumble as he finishes. “And always, always watch your back.”

Grace. The only way it could be more obvious that this is a vampire school would be if he ended that sentence by pulling a cord to release a bunch of confetti and Halloween balloons and a huge banner that said “Hi, we’re vampires!”

I’m honestly stunned at the turn this chapter took. It just doesn’t feel like it belongs at all.

And I want to make it clear: I like bad boy characters. They can be a lot of fun. But there’s a line between “bad boy” and “bully” and I just really felt like this crossed it. I’m a total sucker for the scary monster hero who’s down to attack the heroine until he realizes that fishes are friends, not food. But this just totally missed the mark for me.

What. Just. Happened?