Blood and Chocolate (book) by Annette Curtis Klause
Eh…That pretty much sums up this book for me. Again, lend from a friend, it took me ages to get through it despite only being 264 pages.
I was intrigued by the story line. A young girl, Vivian is a ‘homo lupus’ a.k.a., werewolf. She struggles through the typical coming-of-age feelings of not totally belonging. Wanting to distance from your family and even rebel a little bit.
Vivian finds a human boy whom she thinks is ‘the one’. He is interested in the supernatural and fills that desire for closeness and intimacy she desires. She struggles with the desire to reveal her true self to him, but it would break werewolf law and put the rest of her kind in danger. Personally, I never liked Aiden as a character. I thought he was weak and wimpy and couldn’t understand why Vivian wanted to risk so much for him.
Eventually she decides that before she becomes intimate with him, she will reveal her other form to him. He does not take it well. He freaks out and wants nothing to do with her. Vivian is heartbroken, and runs off unable to deal with her emotions. She blacks out and wakes up in her bed the next morning, with no recollection of what happened after she left Aiden’s house. That night, a string of murders begin. Now I knew who was likely responsible from like the 2nd chapter of the book, but I’ll let you figure that out on your own.
Gabriel, a newcomer and new pack leader decides that action must be taken a divides the pack up to try and catch which of their own is responsible. Gabriel and Vivian are in a way ‘betrothed’ or ‘bonded’ by werewolf tradition. In the same ‘fight to gain power’ way that Gabriel becomes leader, Vivian inadvertently wins the right to become his mate, or “head bitch.” I had to remind myself constantly that the use of the word bitch to describe all of the females was, I suppose, appropriate, seeing them as a pack of wolf-humans.
Vivian gets a note from Aiden’s best friend to meet him later that night. Shortly after, a werewolf witness finds the culprits killing Aiden’s best friend and taking the note. The pack knows Aiden is the next likely vicitim.
Gabriel sends Vivian to meet Aiden and get him out of the way of danger while he gathers the rest of the pack. Vivian makes it in time, but Aiden has a surprise for her, he has shown up with a gun and silver bullets. He was come to kill Vivian and release her from her burden. He refuses to believe her that she is not the killer, until of course, the real killers show up. Bullets fly, werewolf scrapping ensues. Gabriel arrives to save the day…until Aiden shoots Vivian anyways. I couldn’t quite figure out if it was on purpose or not. The whole thing didn’t make much sense to me.
Vivian doesn’t die from her bullet wound because it is removed it time, but she is stuck in a half and half form. She can’t change. Her pack friends try to cheer her up, but in the end it is Gabriel, his story and his passion for Vivian that brings her out of it. She realizes that her love for Aiden was like chocolate, sweet and satisfying at the moment, but with Gabriel she could be her true blood self. She had nothing to hide or fear with him. Gabriel was pretty hot and sexy for a fictional character in a book. I give the book a C+. And I appreciate the value of the book now that I watched the murder of it in movie form and change my rating to a B-.
Blood and Chocolate (DVD) 2007
Now on my copy of Blood and Chocolate it said “Now a Major Motion Picture!” Well of course I had to check out the copy from the library.
Huh?!? Well…it has the same title as the book, there are characters named Vivian, Aiden, Gabriel and Astrid. There are some werewolves…but that is about where the similarities end.
In the movies, both of Vivian’s parents die and she is living with her “aunt Astrid”. They are living in Bucharest. Gabriel is already pack leader and has a Spanish accent. I picked Gabriel as a blond hulking sort…but instead he is portrayed as a suave Spanish guy. He is also about double Vivian’s age. In the book I believe he was like 24 and she was late teens 17 or 18. Not creepy…this more creepy in a pedophile kind of way.
Vivian’s cousin, Rafe, kills some girl for ‘dissing’ him at the club. But he turns into no more than a common wolf. I guess I was expecting more of a ferocious creature.
Vivian actually working at a chocolate shop?!? Did they not get the whole blood and chocolate thing at all?
Aiden is an artist, visiting the city to do studies for his graphic novel. Aiden kind of reminded me of Orlando Bloom, so at least there was something intriguing to look at while I watch this murder of a decent book. He becomes slightly obsessed with Vivian.
They have the full-moon ritual….but they use a human to ‘hunt’ as a pack. I’m a bit confused, maybe I wasn’t paying attention. I think he was some kind of prisoner convicted of a bad crime. The leaping change to wolf form was kind of cool. Could have been better, but then again I was expecting something other than a standard wolf for the transformation. Needless to say human-bait man didn’t make it. In the book I was not aware of any mass human hunts.
Aiden tracks down Vivian in her chocolate shop job. Vivian is just kind of bitchy…to everyone. Not the same tortured soul way in the book. She finally agrees to meet with him, but Rafe finds out and threatens her. Rafe makes it clear that he has plans to become the leader of the pack instead of Gabriel.
Gabriel suspects Rafe of killing the girl from the club and Rafe immediately assumes it was Vivian who told on him. Gabriel warns him that one who hunts without the pack will no longer be part of the pack.
Aiden and Vivian go through a whole 5 minute romance. Rafe catches them and goes to Gabriel telling him that Vivian is giving away all the lou gauro secrets. Gabriel puts out the wolf essential of a hit on Aiden and orders Rafe to carry it out.
Rafe sends a fake letter to Aiden luring him to the chapel where he thinks he will be meeting Vivian to discuss secrets. He tells Aiden to leave on the next train from Romania ‘or else’. Aiden doesn’t understand the seriousness of ‘or else’ coming from Rafe and challenges him. Rafe attacks Aiden in wolf form and escapes only through the silver pentagram on his neck which Rafe bites. The wound causes eventual death to Rafe and Aiden is mortified at what has happened.
He finds Vivian and confronts her. He tells her if she cared a thing about him she would have left him even before they met. Confusing since he essentially stalked her. Aiden attempts to leave town, but werewolves are talking him from all around. He goes to a fancy restaurant and steals all of there silverware as weapons of defense.
Gabriel has to tell Astrid that her son is dead….another disturbing twist for me since Rafe and Astrid were ‘mating’ in the book. And we also find out that Rafe was Gabriel’s son. More on the weird pedophile vibe since Rafe is like Vivian’s age and Vivian is promised to Gabriel. Gabriel tells Astrid that Rafe’s death would be avenged. Gabriel finds Aiden and brings him before the wolf tribunal. He is given the same treatment as human-bait man earlier. If he makes it to the river he is free, otherwise it’s bye-bye Aiden.
More running through the forest, though I wonder why they run as humans so long. Surely wolf-form would be faster. Aiden defends himself with his stolen silverware against a few of the wolves. He makes with across the river, but a wolf still attacks. The Vivian-wolf comes to his rescue and makes short work of the other wolf. Aiden attacks his savior with the silver, not knowing it was Vivian. He attempts to rescue her by taking her to an old film storage unit explaining that the silver in the film will keep the other wolves away. There is a remedy but they can’t find it until after dark.
Aiden for some reason cuts himself with the silver…and they I assume they did something not PG-13 rated. Astrid finds them and confronts them with a gun. And at first she is going to kill them, but then tells them to run away and gives them the gun.
They go to the Pharmacy to get the antidote, but the pharmacist is on the naughty-wolf side and then more appear. Gabriel asks Vivian, “how many more of us need to die for your happiness?” He takes Vivian, leaving Aiden in the alley hidden. Aiden goes back and robs the pharmacist to try and save Vivian.
Aiden takes out Gabriel with a silver knife and a fight breaks out. Lots of guns, water, bottles exploding and shooting randomly. Aiden has some hand-crafted silver bullets, some silver dust, and some fires planned. Gabriel and Aiden are in fisticuffs when Vivian pulls out the gun with the silver bullets. She has a brief, like 2 second internal battle with choosing to kill one of her own kind, but gets over it and shoots him anyways. The factory explodes in thru action-hero fashion.
The movie ends with Aiden and Vivian driving away deciding where to move to.
Hmmm….well I think even if I hadn’t read the book I would give it no more than a D+. It truly was crap. I was actually excited about the “now a major motion picture” sticker on the cover of my book. At least in the Harry Potter films they sort of stick to the plot and the end result is the same. I feel that the author’s whole point of the book, “blood” and “chocolate” was lost. The chocolate is tempting and sweet, but blood and who we are is something deeper. I might upgrade my rating on the book now that I have seen it brutalized in this movie. I give it a D- and I think that is being generous.