Brother Rivalries, and Supernatural Powers, and Deadly Tournaments, Oh My!

*This post contains spoilers*

Welcome back everyone! I know it has been a while since I have written a blog post. I have been crazy busy with work. We all know working retail at this time of year is not fun, but nevertheless, I digress. As of right now I am in a bit of a reading slump which is a problem because the next book I want to read is a Christmas book, and I really don’t want to read a Christmas book in January. BUT before my reading slump, the book that caused my reading slump is Crush by Tracy Wolff. This is the sequel to Crave which I have also written a post about. So, if you haven’t read either book, I would stop right here. There will be spoilers! With that out of the way, let’s dive right in!

I loved this book so much that I procrastinated finishing it. I didn’t want it to end, and I knew that when it was over, I was going to have a hard time picking up something else to read. This book picked up right where Crave ended. We had just learned that Grace is a gargoyle; the first one in a thousand years because Jaxon’s father had killed them all. There is a three-four-month gap because Grace doesn’t remember turning to stone or trapping herself and Hudson in her Gargoyle form. Everyone is trying to get her to remember, but she just can’t. So, Grace is on this journey to try to remember what happened to her when she learns that Jaxon’s “evil” brother, Hudson, is stuck in her head. He’s trapped there, and so they have to come up with a spell to set him free. Jaxon wants to take it a step further and strip Hudson of his powers. There is also a tournament all the high schoolers play which seemed to be this really hardcore handball game. And the governing body over the supernatural, The Circle, comes to Katmere to watch the games. The Circle at Katmere is only the start of Grace and Jaxon’s problems.

I had a few predictions in my head from the first book, and one of them is true. But I accidentally ruined it for myself because when I looked at the end to see how many pages the book was (681) I saw the last line of the book…but hey, my prediction was right! This book has a lot of traditional Young Adult Literature tropes the main one being: the girl falls in love with one brother but will then slowly fall in love with the other one who is ultimately the better choice for her. You could also look at this like Elena falling for Stephen in the first few seasons, but once Damon is introduced you just know those two are going to end up together. That is exactly what happened in this book; Grace fell for Jaxon in the first book. It’s the traditional good girl, bad boy relationship that makes readers swoon. Then in Crush, Hudson is now in the picture. You learn more about him and how he is different from Jaxon. The whole first book (and actually most of the second) is everyone telling Grace horrible tings about Hudson. But Grace and the readers see a different side of him. You are then faced with the same dilemma as Grace, do you trust Hudson or has he been lying to Grace because he wants to be free?

In my opinion, I love Hudson. I think he is better for Grace because he still lets her fight for herself instead of wanting her to stand on the sidelines while he does all of the work *cough* Jaxon *cough* *cough* I think it is a very interesting dynamic to see between the brothers. Jaxon is very protective almost to an obsessive point. He wants to provide and do everything for Grace even when she keeps telling him she can hold her own. On the other hand, Hudson lets Grace fight for herself. He’ll help her when he feels she needs it, but he never tries to do the job for her.

Also, another main part of the book is how Jaxon has painted this image of this brother in his head, and when Grace starts to tear down that image Jaxon gets defensive. He has believed Hudson to be the bad guy for so long that he no longer thinks there is any good in him. As the reader, this is something you have to decide for yourself. Is Hudson really this terrible person? He said he did terrible thing to prevent even worse things from happening. This is something only Grace really understands or gets.

I’m really excited for the third book, Covet, to come out in March. I want to see Hudson and Grace’s relationship develop now that they are mates, I want to see what that means for Jaxon and what will happen to him, and I want to know if Grace turned into a vampire. There was so much that happened at the end of Crush and I just want answers! I can’t wait until March for them! I mentioned this in my Crave post, but I still don’t know if this is just a trilogy or if Wolff will be continuing the series further. She mentioned Covet way before Crush was released, so I think if there was a fourth book, she would’ve mentioned it by now, but who knows.

That’s all I have for this week! Hope y’all enjoyed!