Review: The Frenzy by Francesca Lia Block
From Goodreads: Love is a werewolf, influenced by the moon and terror, and always about to change. Liv has a secret. Something happened to her when she was thirteen. Something that changed everything. Liv knows she doesn’t belong anymore-not in her own skin, not in her family . . . not anywhere. The only time she truly feels like herself is when she’s with her boyfriend, Corey, and in the woods that surround her town. But in the woods, a mysterious woman watches Liv. In the woods, a pack of wild boys lurks. In the woods, Liv learns about the curse that will haunt her forever. The curse that caused the frenzy four years ago. And that may cause it again, all too soon.While Corey and Liv’s love binds them together, Liv’s dark secret threatens to tear them apart as she struggles to understand who-or what-she really is. And by the light of the full moon, the most dangerous secrets bare their claws. . . .
The Frenzy blends the lore of Werewolves with Francesca Lia Block’s fantastical prose. I first read Block earlier this year when she had her poetry book How to (un)Cage a Girl out. I can’t thank HarperTeen enough for introducing me to such a powerful writer. I will be reading the Dangerous Angels bind up soon!
Liv lives with secrets hers and the secrets of others. The are breaking her apart, caused her to feel the rage and frenzy. It happened the first time when she was thirteen and her period came. The Frenzy came with the curse. She saw her Mother’s truck pull into the drive with a wolf on the back, her mother is an excellent hunter. When she saw the wolf and the white snow turning red with the blood of this majestic animal she frenzied and ran away wondering why she wanted to taste her mother’s flesh as she went for the kill.
When she came back naked and and spooked like an animal her family sent her to a psychiatrist.
After that session Dr. Nieberding put me on Lexapro and told my mom to get me a journal to write my feelings in. The meds and the diary worked. I rarely got angry anymore. I rarely cried. I was usually quiet and well-behaved. I stopped having to see Nieberding except for general checkups to monitor my medication or if I slipped and had a really bad tantrum at school or with my parents.
We skip then to Liv’s seventeen year old self. She starts seeing these strange boys around town.
What happened? he asked me , without words.
How could he do that? I wondered. How could I hear him? But just in case he could hear me, too, I thought back at him as hard as I could: I was shamed.
He nodded as if he understood.
We get to meet some pretty interesting adult characters along the way. The characterizations were very fleshed out and had none of the flat stereotypical writing that we see a lot in YA with adult and boy characters.
Liv begins to realize what she is, and what she is becoming she finds a woman in the forest that explains what the Frenzy is and why it is happening to her. She becomes scared to feel rage or happiness.
I didn’t tell him that what I was most scared of, most haunted by, was something I didn’t understand and could never run away from.
It was myself.
All of these things Liv goes through and the growing supernatural suspense keeps you reading at a frantic pace. Again Block’s powerful way with words on love shines through and as Liv discovers more of herself she writes more and more in her journal. On being in love with a boy who isn’t white, pretending to date her best friend to save them both because he is gay. So much stress on one girl who is trying to go through the frenzy at the same time.
“Love is a werewolf”, I wrote in my diary after he left. “Influenced by the moon and terror. And always about to change. Romantic love can blind you, too, just the way I could become blinded by the curse of the animal inside. It can make you neglect what is most important at the time.”
I highly suggest this book to any true lover of the paranormal. Such a new and exciting take on shape shifting and wolves.
This book was sent in ARC form from the publisher.
Review: Moonlight (Dark Guardian 1) by Rachel Hawthorne
Kayla has some issues. When she was very young, hunters mistaking her parents for wolves, shot and killed her parents in a National Forest. Now on the cusp of turning seventeen Kayla is miles away from home, dealing with her parents death by taking a guide job in that same forest. The rest of the guides are super nice, except for Lucas. He tends to just stare at her from afar, why is it he is the one who gets Kayla’s heart beating so fast? The first assignment is to take a group of research students and a professor farther into the woods than normal. Kayla finds out quick these people have an ulterior motive and accidentally aides in their attempt to find a werewolf. Who thought they existed? Can Kayla right her wrong and face her fears in time to save the wolves?
I gave this book a three instead of a four because it reminded me of other wolf books I have read. There wasn’t a lot of originality but the book was really fun. Fast paced and even though you have figured out what is going on Kayla hasn’t and watching it all unfold through her eyes is a real prize. The characters were well thought, fleshed out well, and relate-able.
The book is part of Harper Teen’s Pitch Black book set and I will be ordering the rest of this series here in a few moments. I would not pass this one up, especially if you like parnormal / lycan books. If you enjoyed The Summoning, Blood and Chocolate, or Shiver you will like Moonlight. It’s on sale at Amazon for $3.60 right now. What better time to give it a go?
