Crave

This book... I didn't have much expectations when I started this and maybe that's why I'm rating it just as ok.
Honestly, I saw vampires plus academy and jumped on board, even though after seeing the cover I was definitely worried about the similarities with Twilight and that's the reason why my expectations where low. It is similar to Twilight in a lot of aspects: Grace moving to a different town; Jaxon worried about being a monster; their first encounter; the first time Grace's in danger; 2 love interests from different factions/groups. But I think Crave was actually a weird mix of various best selling YA books or vampire TV shows: Twilight was all over the story; the academy description gave me vibes of Hogwarts/Vampire Academy; the way the “factions” or groups behaved gave me a very tiny vibe of Divergent (but it might just be me seeing stuff after 592 paaaaages!); also The Vampire Diaries (Jaxon and his brother's story just felt a spin of Damon and Stefan's relationship) and Legacies was very entwined here too.
It just felt like the author took something from several of these books/shows/movies, changed it in some way and put it in the story. I get that books and TV shows/movies can and will influence an author but there were too many elements entangled here in my opinion.
It bothered me that the academy aspect of the story wasn't fleshed out at ALL. So much potential thrown away and the book has 592 pages... I mean... there was definitely opportunity to flesh it out!
Oh, and The Order (Jaxon's faction or group or whatever) had so much potential too but none of them are developed... Annoying.
The insta-love/obsession came out of nowhere and they were obsessed with each other in two days... So, yeah, exasperating is an understatement.
There was diversity in the characters but most of these characters were underdeveloped. Also, the ones who were a little more developed were villains or were siding with the villain side. This rubbed me the wrong way. Some of these characters might have a bigger role in the next book, but that possibility doesn't make this less shady.

What I liked:

- Other supernatural creatures, besides vampires, in the academy (very, very interesting and again so much potential);
- Grace's character at least until she started obsessing about Jaxon because then she just went downhill (so this didn't last long);
- Some characters like Grace's uncle, Flint, Macy, Jaxon;
- The gothic castle setting;
- Hilarious scene with a book, I think you can guess which one;
- The ending was very interesting.

I don't know if I'll read the next book. It might depend on my mood and I might check the reviews to see if it got better and if the diverse characters are finally developed and play a role in the story. Or I'll just forget about it entirely. It can go either way.