Reading Funk

I have a confession. I bought into the hype regarding Tracy Wolff’s Crave series. If you loved this series, don’t read on because I didn’t love them, and this post will make you angry. If you haven’t read them, don’t read on because there will be (some minor) spoilers. I’m aware those two statements will leave me with no readers of the blog post.

I started book 1 and wanted to throw it out a window. The writing isn’t all that great. No one thinks in abbreviations in their head. Grace thinks OMG, WTF in her head and no, just no. There is nothing special about Jaxon. He’s just there, and he’s always telling Grace what to do, and how to do it. Why the heck is she attracted to him???!!! Grace is maddening and her best friend Heather is a character that doesn’t need to be in the book or the series at all.

Here’s the thing though, I continued on to book 2. I liked book 2 was vastly better than the first although Wolff could use a continuity editor. Grace has been gone for 3 months and twenty-one days, and Jaxon tells her she’s been gone for 121 days… Uhm… 121 days is roughly 4 months and 1 day. I’m baffled that this kind of writing passed muster. These kinds of things are everywhere in these books. Once Charlaine Harris hired a continuity editor, her Stackhouse books improved from wonderful books, to fabulous books.

I really, really like Hudson. He’s a much better character than Jaxon. And because Hudson was amazing and so obviously supportive of Grace, I wanted to continue on to book 3. The thing is, in books 2 and 3, Grace is suddenly some badass and being a gargoyle does not a badass make. Although her gargoyle abilities are cool. Also, apparently you can do anything you want to Grace and face almost no repercussions from her or the school. Want to attempt to kill her? Have at it! Not only will the school not do anything, you get to continue your best-friend status with her.

I’m still reading book 3. It’s getting better. Almost like Wolff found her groove. I had never read Wolff before, but the thing is, she has a ton of books out, so I feel the groove should have been found before writing this series. But it appears YA is a new genre for her, so perhaps that’s why. I imagine it’s hard to completely switch genres and writing styles.

But reading these books has put me in a reading funk, and so it’s taken me almost 2 1/2 weeks to read them, and I’m still not done. They feel like a bad Twilight knockoff, and Hudson and Macy are the only characters that are worth cheering for. And Macy is a badass. The writing did evolve as far as giving her the powers she should have had all along. I’m glad book 4 isn’t out, because I’m not going to move onto it. I’m in a funk, and I feel I have to finish the books I have so I can throw them out the window forever. I’m sorry I don’t like them.

I need to pull out of this funk. So tell me what you’re reading so I can start something new that will bring back my good reading vibes.