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Blood and Chocolate | 
 enlarge | Author: Annette Curtis Klause
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy New: $2.94
You Save: $4.05 (58%)
New (24) Used (33) Collectible (1) from $0.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  310 reviews
Sales Rank: 21317
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0440226686
EAN: 9780440226680
ASIN: 0440226686
Publication Date: September 7, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand new - some minor shelf wear. Never been read!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Characterizing the adolescent experience as monstrous is not exactly a new idea. M.T. Anderson's woefully confused teen vampire in Thirsty and Jean Thesman's reluctant young witch in The Other Ones serve as excellent examples of this metaphor set to fiction. But no one really captures how our hormones make us howl as well as Annette Curtis Klause. Blood and Chocolate chronicles the longings and passions of one Vivian Gandillon, teenage werewolf. Her pack family, recently burned out of their West Virginia home by suspicious neighbors, has resettled in a sleepy Maryland suburb. At her new school, Viv quickly falls for sensitive heartthrob Aiden, a human--or "meat-boy," as her pack calls him. Soon she is trying to tame her undomesticated desires to match his more civilized sensibilities. "He was gentle. She hadn't expected that. Kisses to her were a tight clutch, teeth, and tongue... His eyes were shy beneath his dark lashes, and his lips curved with delight and desire--desire he wouldn't force on her... he was different." But Vivian's animal ardor cannot be stilled, and she must decide if she should keep Aiden in the dark about her true nature or invite him to take a walk on her wild side. Klause poetically describes the violence and sensuality of the pack lifestyle, creating a hot-blooded heroine who puts the most outrageous riot grrrls to shame. Blood and Chocolate is a masterpiece of adolescent angst wrapped in wolf's clothing, and its lovely, sensuous taste is sure to be sweet on the teenage tongue. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert
Product Description
Vivian Gandillon relishes the change, the sweet, fierce ache that carries her from girl to wolf. At sixteen, she is beautiful and strong, and all the young wolves are on her tail. But Vivian still grieves for her dead father; her pack remains leaderless and in disarray, and she feels lost in the suburbs of Maryland. She longs for a normal life. But what is normal for a werewolf?
Then Vivian falls in love with a human, a meat-boy. Aiden is kind and gentle, a welcome relief from the squabbling pack. He's fascinated by magic, and Vivian longs to reveal herself to him. Surely he would understand her and delight in the wonder of her dual nature, not fear her as an ordinary human would.
Vivian's divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack. Moving between two worlds, she does not seem to belong in either. What is she really--human or beast? Which tastes sweeter--blood or chocolate?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 305 more reviews...
 An underrated, good read August 12, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I think this is a good under rated book for teens who are into dark fantasy and romance like Twilight. The story is centered around Vivian, who lives with her werewolf clan while they try to coexist with humans. It shows the character change as Vivian goes from hating and feeling superior to humans and then leveling with them.
This may just be the nerd in me speaking but I find werewolf novels to have less logic problems than vampire novels. For example - in a vampire novel, what would happen if a vampire sucked another vampire's blood? Or what about someone with a blood-related disease? So I tend to prefer werewolves in the long run.
I know the ending is rather controversial with people simply because it fails to be cliched. The heroine does not end up with her first true love and the message may come out mixed. Does this mean that love can conquer all or does this try to give teens a better message about the real world? Love is wonderful but it can't conquer real issues like debt for example, which is one of the biggest causes of divorce in America. I'm a realist so I prefer this ending rather than the lovely dovey, pink bubbles and hearts endings that seem so popular now.
Plot: B Okay, so the basic story "human meets creature" is overdone but the spin, especially the end is good.
Characters: A The main characters have different sides and they're rounded out.
Readability: A It reads simple and sweet.
In short: A Buy it. Its a nice good read.
 Stick with your own kind? July 19, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ultimately this book had promise. It started off well and the characters were engaging, but it started to fall flat when the romance between Vivian and Aiden suddenly happened with little to no build up. But that seemed to be the case with the entire story. None of the action had much tension. Furthermore, characters were introduced with little purpose that left me wondering why they were brought into the story. Scenes were included that didn't facilitate the plot (the one at Aiden's house with his father in particular). And shouldn't something have happened between Vivian and Kelly? What was the point of having tension between them if it was never going to go anywhere? On top of that, the behavior of the characters seemed inconsistent, particularly that of Aiden, who in the end acted nothing like one would expect.
Which brings me to the ending. --Spoiler-- Like the previous reviewer pointed out, the message was essentially "stick with your own kind." It's not that I think every story needs a happy ending. I wouldn't have had an issue had it just not worked out between Vivian and Aiden, even if the reason was the same (that Aiden couldn't handle the truth). But the ending essentially reaffirmed his prejudice by showing Vivian choosing one of her own kind - and one she hadn't shown any interest in for the entire story - because that was who she "belonged" with. That's a weird message to leave your readers with.
Overall, this book started off well, but lack of suspense, inconsistent characterization and an ending that left a bad taste in my mouth made it not quite the supernatural-thriller-romance I had hoped for.
Not terrible... until you get to the end July 18, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Annette Curtis Klause, Blood and Chocolate (Laurel Leaf, 1997)
After all the flap over the film version of this novel (and its subsequent bombing at the box office), I figured I'd give the book a shot to see just what all the fuss was about. And fussworthy it is, though I'm not entirely sure I found it such for the same reasons as most folks. I will warn you at the beginning of this that in order to talk about what really bugged me about this book, I will have to reveal its ending, in part; I will cloak it as much as possible, but certain portions of this review could be considered major spoilers. Thus, if you are planning on reading the book and haven't yet, skip to the last paragraph.
Vivian Gandillon is a werewolf. At the opening of the book, her pack's inn is set afire, and the surviving members of the pack are forced to flee; they end up in suburban Maryland. (Yes, suburban Maryland.) Everything's going about as well as can be expected until Vivian meets Aiden, a human high-school student with whom she instantly feels a connection. Soon, they're dating and the inevitable question arises: should she reveal her true nature to him, or keep it a secret? Would he accept her and love her for what she is, as no human has loved a werewolf as long as the pack's memory can discern?
All well and good, and the book does seem as if it's going toward the whole Romero-and-Juliet "love as thou wilt" path, but Klause does a one-eighty at the end of the book and drops the "loving outside your [race, creed, color, fill in the blank] is bad, mmmkay?" moral in our laps. I really had hoped, as human beings, we'd gotten past that sort of neanderthal thinking. What had been a previously interesting, if not terribly well-written, novel suddenly, in its last few pages, turned deeply offensive. It's probably worse that in order to do so, Klause had to have her main character also do a one-eighty and simply give up all her beliefs in order to make the moral work. (She does give a reason for this, but it's a bit of a stretch, to understate the case.) I just couldn't bring myself to buy it, though it did fit in with many of the book's other flaws, such as its inconsistent characters and generally loose, lackadaisical writing style.
Still, despite all this, as with most plot-based books of this stripe, it's written in such a way that one can't help but keep turning pages in order to see how this is all going to come out. (This, again, makes the ending all the more of a pain; you've gone through all this to get to... that.) And because of this, I've certainly read worse books in the recent past, from the point of readability; I can't think of one, however, that seemed as much of a letdown as this one was. **
 Engaging Werewolf Fiction July 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I agree very much with E.R.'s review of this book- it is a wonderful story with a very engaging plot. I disagree with it being banned, especially when in comparison to today's television programming, but I'll leave it at that.
If you don't mind a book containing what I believe is on par with today's teenage community, then I suggest reading this book.
I myself have always liked vampires more, but this book drew me into werewolves, which was a difficult task to accomplish.
The third in my top 3 fiction novels, this deserves at least a screening. Also, please look into Companions of the Night and The Silver Kiss - both vampire fiction, both amazing books.
 Somewhat enjoyable.... July 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Three stars because I take into account a heroine, Vivian, that's not Mary Predictable Sue, the unique circumstances of the book, the understanding of wolves, and the decency of writing ability. I somewhat enjoyed the book.
Only somewhat enjoyable because Vivian is so far gone as a wolf, stuck on her instincts, that she couldn't converge into a realistic teenage lifestyle to deepen her character and the story.
Instead, forced by the constraints of too much wolf and not enough human, an unlikely romance forms between herself and Aiden, this romance is totally void of any substance and human emotions excluding lust. This relationship is a big part of the premise for the book. But it's a cracked foundation that lends a helping hand on knocking off the two stars in my rating.
Also it seemed to me that most of the characters were too extreme. There were no likable human qualities- only vices. It didn't feel like Vivian was a person. To add to that I felt the book was too methodical. Everything was planned to work out with the ending and so I lost the hint of a grip on the already bad characters. They became puppets.
Overall I think this book had a lot of potential but I didn't really enjoy reading it.
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