Reviews with content warning for Violence - Crush

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Crush by Tracy Wolff

23 reviews

ix37lexi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

A great step up from the last one, it delved deeper into world building and added new characters while developing the characters we already know and fleshing out their personalities even more. I would definitely reread to see what I missed the first time around because there’s little Easter egg details that are easy to miss throughout.

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michelleub's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book was way longer than it needed to be. It wasn’t that bad but it wouldn’t been better if 200 pages shorter

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cady_sass's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Twilight, but make it Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets, but also make it the Harry Potter and the goblet of fire, but also make it gen z.
Not as good as good as the first but enjoyable. You can see the final page twist coming from 4000 miles away, but I don’t hate it. Just a little cliche.

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haleybre's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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kassidyreads's review

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adventurous funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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brindolyn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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dkgreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Sooooo, I’m not quite sure how I ended up on #TeamHudson, but here we are. The last half of the book was pretty freaking intense and I’m 100% INVESTED going forward, that’s for sure!

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ashleyvharris's review

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adventurous challenging emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Crush is a disjointed follow up to Crave that unfortunately falls into the sophomore slump trap.

Although Crave was certainly not my favorite book, I enjoyed the campy—if not cringey—mashup of Twilight and Harry Potter. The second book of the series throws so many things at readers that it often feels like Wolff was trying to work in every YA fantasy/romance trope possible. This resulted in the story feeling almost like a parody of YA fantasy at times.

As a reader, I don’t mind plot twists or multiple character objectives, but I like to have a strong sense of where the story is headed. Crush never really settled on what it wanted to be; instead, it oscillated between half-hearted/suicidal Scavenger Hunt, knockoff Hunger Games, and Grace going insane. Choosing one plot element to ground the story would have made this a stronger book.

One major issue working against this sequel is the length. There’s simply not enough complexity to justify nearly 700 pages. I was expecting a lot more world-building and explanation of the magic systems/history/school/paranormal government. A good fantasy series is able to find the balance between the magical and reality. The magic in this series feels as though it’s decided on a whim based on what the author needs her characters to be capable of in any given moment. For example, Grace flys for the first time and days later is seemingly an expert at death-defying maneuvers. Hudson is conveniently able to leave his unbelievable powers with Grace? Many details like these are sprinkled throughout without any solid foundation or explanation.

One thing that Crush offers is an expanded cast of characters. Our little world of paranormals at Katmere expands past Jaxon’s friends to include new witches, dragons, and wolves—not all of whom are friendly. I enjoyed the less savory but definitely fascinating characters of Cyrus and Cole. While their backstories are severely lacking, I’m hopeful that we will understand them more in future installments.

Hudson was clearly the standout character here. Despite being exclusively in Grace’s head, Wolff managed to establish a dynamic new character with wit and complex emotions. A classic brooding misunderstood antihero… we love to see it. Getting those last few chapters and extra scene from Hudson’s perspective was *chef’s kiss* and I desperately want more from his POV.

The biggest struggle reading this book was the writing style. The characters’ dialogue and choices of phrasing felt like what a parent assumes their children talks like. I got a TON of secondhand embarrassment while reading. Wolff also recycles turns of phrase a lot. “If someone had told me 6 months ago that I’d be [strange paranormal experience], I’d tell them they’re crazy.”

Overall, Crush fell flat and lacked the focus needed for a solid second book, but successfully introduced new allies, villains, and love interests to carry the rest of the series forward.

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rinku's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

The Crave series is such a guilty pleasure for me, and I can’t help it but enjoy it so much. The second book, Crush, was no exception to this. Objectively, there’s so much to criticise but man, sometimes even I am just enjoying a book.

Grace awakes after the events of the first book, with no memory what has happened to her in the last month. We only know one thing: she has turned into a gargoyle and is the first one of those in centuries. After some time, she notices that she’s sharing her body with Hudson, the supposedly evil brother of Jaxon. To get him out of her head, her and her friends have to collect some MacGuffins – one of them includes some arbitrary sports event they have to win.

I’ll have to say that the plot is weird and just absurd in some parts which is probably one of the reasons why it’s so enjoyable for me. Especially the whole Hudson thing was just so weird. He’s apparently in Grace’s body but when he talks to her, she can also see him? Is he part of her mind or is he actually there? Can he interact with the world around him? And why is no one caring about the fact that Grace is talking to herself before they know about this? The random sports event I’ve mentioned is also kinda bizarre because it’s won after just one goal. Also, I’m pretty sure that the students never go to school, even though they are at a boarding school. Nevertheless, the setting is still amazing.

But the last 200 or so pages become randomly so great. The writing style got so much better, the plot more interesting, and there were many dramatic scenes that were written so well, like

Xavier’s death or Grace’s apparent death. Talking about Grace, her going alone to the second Lundares is definitely her defining moment, it was so amazing

. At other points, those things are lacking, especially the writing style that is so try-hard teenager-like that it’s funny again.

When it comes to the romance, I’m not a fan of love triangles with brothers. On the one side, Grace is crushing on someone who seemingly only exists in her mind. Hudson is such a cliché love interest aka he’s annoying and flirty. But he develops so much in the course of the story, and I actually started to like him. Jaxon is on the other side and suddenly, Grace has some problems with him. I think those are caused by her gargoyle side? I wasn’t a fan of this since I used to like them. It comes to the big drama when

their fateful connection – not the biggest fan of this trope – is cut apart by a spell that the evil guys find

. It was also interesting to get to know other people from the Vega’s family, like their father Cyrus. He’s such a cliché villain but I still love him.

Grace is still quite the stereotypical protagonist and now, she’s also the chosen one being the only gargoyle in existence. It’s also a bit annoying how she survives everything that should be deadly under normal circumstances – but I still like her. Besides Grace, the cast became quite big, especially with the team that trains together with Grace for the sport events. But I’ll have to admit that I liked them all and I also really started to like Flint. It’s furthermore nice that Grace’s old best friend is not forgotten.

Like I’ve said, Crush is such a guilty pleasure read. It abandons some YA clichés, while going along with other ones. Because of the absurdity of the plot, you’re never sure what will happen next – which makes the book so engaging.

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redlikerosebuds's review

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adventurous challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I want to start out by saying that this book took a very long time to become a good story. 62 chapters to be exact. However, when it did indeed start to get good, I was very pleased. I have had so many different thoughts and feelings while reading this book I actually had to rewrite it in a word document for it to make sense. I will also say that some points of the plot, once the foreshadowing started, was predictable. Not in a bad way, though, in a way that I celebrated being correct in my guesses.

I know in my reviews that I sometimes don’t talk about the plot, so if you’re interested in someone’s perspective on that, you might want to find a review that explains it in more detail than I’m probably going to. Anyway, on to my thoughts: as I said, this book was really dragging for me in the beginning. It was just so slow and annoying, and it felt like it could have been condensed into less chapters. We didn’t get much explanation for events that happened in the first book, and it was really frustrating to read. I had felt I read over half the book already, and when I checked, I was only a quarter in. The learning about Ludares portion dragged on the most for me, even though I think it was only two or three chapters. The only saving grace of the first section was Hudson’s commentary and banter with Grace. It also takes Grace FOREVER to start trying to use her powers. One of the downsides of this book is that it’s not well-paced in terms of getting to the main plot. Once the story kicks up though, it was enjoyable. Towards the end, it was shock after shock, some expected, some not.

Now, onto the characters. And boy do I have a lot to say about them. Jaxon was infuriating almost the entire book. Practically every bit of (what I consider to be very little, if I’m being honest) character development Jaxon had in the first book completely vanished in this one. There are portions of the story that Jaxon and Grace’s relationship remained constant, but a hollow shell of what it was in the first book. Her and Hudson have a much better back-and-forth, and I was actively rooting for him from the moment he appeared.

Obviously not from the very moment he appeared, considering his violence towards others that didn’t make sense at the time, including taking over Grace’s body and attacking Cole, which he ended up deserving anyway since he eventually severs Grace and Jaxon’s mating bond, and attacking Jaxon in the Bloodletter’s lair.

Grace, on the other hand, has wonderful character development throughout the novel. When Grace finally stands up for herself and what she believes in, I was truly proud of her like she was one of my close friends. And Hudson, with his quick wit and quips, eventually becoming emotionally vulnerable, was easily the best part of the whole book.

The thing is, I hate love triangles, and this book is no exception. I hate them because sometimes I end up liking the second lead more than the guy she’s supposed to end up with.

(Although, now that their mating bond is severed, I have some cautious hope that she’ll end up with Hudson.)

This is one of those times, and it’s incredibly irritating. It’s in part because there’s so much mystery surrounding their relationship that Grace obviously doesn’t remember but that Hudson does, and there’s something really satisfying about him slowly revealing it to her.

Overall, if you have the patience and want to find out what happens after the events of Crave, I do in fact recommend this book.

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