Blood and Chocolate
(1997, Ages 16 and Up)
6/3/16
There will always be a special place in my heart for this story. This is not only one of the first novels in the teen romance category that I remember reading, but perhaps the only one for which those closest to me shared my praise, namely my younger sister and one of my best friends from high school. Odd as it sounds, this was a very rare thing for me. We three loved fantasy fiction and still do, and yet, until this book, we never found one that we all truly loved with equal passion. And I find it especially fitting that the story’s author will be celebrating her birthday this month. What romantic doesn’t like a good werewolf tale to kick off the summer (aside from maybe the ones who prefer vampires, of course?) And so, in honor of Annette Curtis Klause, turning 62 on June 20th, I’m going to introduce what is arguably her best-known novel to date.
16-year-old Vivian Gandillon is a loup-garou—a werewolf—living in present-day Maryland. She and her widowed mother, Esme, remain in close contact with the remaining members of their pack, who are struggling hard to survive within human society after yet another arson-caused fire killed many of their kind—including Vivian’s father who was the pack’s leader. This results in continual bitter arguments and violence between pack-mates, making Vivian increasingly depressed and lonely. Despite these feelings, however, Esme warns Vivian against getting too close to humans and tells her to stay with the Five, a gang of boys who are the only other teens in the pack, but they only make matters worse with their recklessly immature behavior and their obvious desire of Vivian as a mate rather than a friend. But one day, after reading a human classmate’s poem, which contains lovely and surprisingly accurate descriptions of a werewolf transformation, Vivian decides to take a chance and find the writer: a boy named Aiden. A sensitive lover of magic and philosophy, Aiden appears to be Vivian’s intellectual and spiritual match in every way, but she naturally must hide her animal side from him, much to her chagrin. While she walks the fine line between her love for Aiden and her loyalty to the pack, a man suddenly turns up dead—with suspicious wounds that could only have been made by a werewolf. With a traitor in their midst and the police coming ever closer to the truth of her kind’s existence, Vivian is left with fears could destroy both her life and the lives of those she cares for, both human and werewolf.
The werewolf pack as Klause has created it is like its own tight-knit community and even subculture, to a degree, with its own religion—Vivian often uses expressions/curses like “Great Moon” or “Goddess”—its own sayings, such as “Don’t date if you can’t mate” (since werewolves and humans can’t breed together), and even its own slang terms, such as “meat-people”, a derogatory word for humans. More to the point, unlike some traditional books of this kind, the protagonist here is neither regretful nor inwardly tortured because of what she is. On the contrary, it is perhaps the greatest joy of her existence. The strength, the swiftness, the physical experience of the transformation and the sheer beauty of the creature she becomes, are all nothing short of ecstasy for Vivian. Accordingly, Klause peppers the story with numerous sexual metaphors to describe and compare the imagery of bodily changes and carnal desires, among other things, as exemplified in one of the finest portrayals of a werewolf transformation that I’ve ever seen in literature:
“Like all her people, at the full moon she had to change whether she wanted to or not, the urge was too strong to refuse. Other times she could change at will, either partway or fully. Right now the moon swelled like a seven-month belly, and she wanted to change because it was possible. She wanted to run for the joy of it.
She stalked through the backyard dusk, across the bat-grazed clearing in the narrow ribbon of woods out back, over the stream, up the embankment, and down into the wide grassy valley that held the river.
The grass was already high. Here and there might be nests made by kids making out or getting high, but she sniffed the air and smelled no human flesh.
Down by the river was a giant tumble of rocks that screened the riverbank. Behind the rocks, amid the shoulder-high weeds, she slowly slid off her clothes. Already her skin prickled with the sprouting pelt. A trickle of breeze curled around her buttocks, and her nipples tightened in the cool air off the river. She laughed and threw her panties down.
Her laugh turned to a moan at the first ripple in her bones. She tensed her thighs and abdomen to will the change on, and clutched the night air like a lover as her fingers lengthened and her nails sprouted. Her blood churned with heat like desire. The night, she thought, the sweet night. The exciting smells of rabbit, damp earth, and urine drenched the air.
The flesh of her arms bubbled and her legs buckled to a new shape. She doubled over as the muscles of her abdomen went into a brief spasm, then grimaced as her teeth sharpened and her jaw extended. She felt the momentary pain of the spine’s crunch and then the sweet release.
She was a creature much larger and stronger than any natural wolf. Her toes and legs were too long, her ears too big, and her eyes held fire. Wolf was only a convenient term they had adopted. Those who preferred science to myth said they descended from something older—some early mammal that had absorbed protean matter brought to Earth by a meteorite.
Vivian stretched and pawed at the ground, she sniffed the glorious air. She felt as if her tail could sweep the stars from the sky.
I will howl for you, human boy, she thought. I will hunt you in my girl skin but I’ll celebrate as wolf. And she ran the length of the river to the edge of the city slums and back, under the hopeful early-summer moon.” (Pg. 29-31)
Vivian is not ashamed of her lust, either for love or for life. Through Vivian’s actions and personality Klause portrays the similarities between humans and animals that eat, mate, love, and live as nature intended, and how there can be no greater beauty than that.
But that’s not to say that Vivian is promiscuous or evil or even heartless—or that her ability is without its misgivings. Much as Vivian is proud of what she is, even the best intentioned of her people tend to, in her mind, disgrace if not outright abuse the power their wolf form gives them. Vivian wishes with all her heart that they could see what she sees and long for the same thing she wants: to enjoy their wolf form for its own sake, not to befoul the image of their race and their heritage by slaughtering one another. But Vivian comes to realize that she may not be as different—or noble—in this sense as she would like to believe. Should she ever see Aiden during a full moon, for instance, she will have less control over the wolf transformation, and be at greater risk of inadvertently harming him:
“‘Dear Moon, he’s sweet, Vivian thought in anguish. A swift pang hit her gut, and she bit the inside of her cheek, hoping the pain would keep her sane. Not sweet like that, she screamed silently, staring with panicked eyes at her round firm thighs. [. . .]
How do I make him go? She thought as her joints began to pop. [. . .]
[. . .] He moved closer and put an arm around her. ‘You pick a funny time to go shy on me,’ he said.
Her shoulders shook with silent laughter at her stupidity. How could she think she could be intimate with a human? She detected an undeniable rippling up her spine, and a hardness came to her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She tested a new idea. So what if I hurt him?
‘Vivian?’ Aiden whispered. [. . .]
[. . .] It was a stupid thought. She doubled over and moaned. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Aiden asked, surprise and concern in his voice.
‘I think I’m coming down with the flu,’ she said. What a brainstorm. ‘Maybe you should go. I don’t want you to catch it.’
‘But someone should look after you if you’re ill.’ [. . .]
[. . .] A spasm ripped through her and the bones in her knees crunched. ‘Go! Please go!’ she yelled, and scrambled for the window like a drunk, her legs refusing to obey. ‘I’m going to be sick.’
She dove onto her bed, rolled to the floor, and spidered out of the room on knuckles and toes. She reached the bathroom at the end of the hall and slammed the door behind her. [. . .]
Outside the window the swollen moon leered at her over the tops of the trees.
She shuddered with pain, and tears outlined her downy face. She had never known a time when she hadn’t wanted the change, but now she was nauseated from holding it back. [. . .]
[. . .] She clenched her hand, withdrew her shaking fist, and curled into a tight, trembling ball on the bathroom floor. I won’t go out, she promised. I won’t go out. If she did, she might follow him and stalk him to his lair.
She shuddered into her final shape, raised her muzzle, and howled frustration at the porcelain tile. Her voice echoed about her like a curse.” (Pg. 65-67)
For all that he loves to consider the existence of otherworldly creatures and the mystical as a whole, Aiden is still very much a normal human boy with normal human perceptions of reality that Vivian, being a mystical creature herself, can’t always agree or identify with. And as the mysteriously murdered bodies keep piling up and a series of events begins to affect her memories of previous nights, Vivian can’t help but wonder if she really is nothing more than an ugly, bloodthirsty beast herself, incapable and undeserving of true love. As the book’s title suggests and its synopsis states: “What is [Vivian] really—human or beast? Which tastes sweeter—blood or chocolate?”
Like many teens her age, Vivian yearns for acceptance, and answers to her questions of her place in the midst of a chaotic and unforgiving world, a struggle made all the more difficult when even the closest of loved ones offer neither guidance nor comfort, and those who could are gone forever. But as she pursues these answers, not once does she ever lose her inner strength or the determination to stay true to herself.
A gorgeous blend of tragic teen love, identity crises, exciting wolf battles, and a murder mystery to boot, Blood and Chocolate is a rare delight for teens and adults looking for a fantasy tale that is as deep and smart as it is romantic and suspenseful.
CREDITS:
All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
All book excerpts are from Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause (1997 paperback edition; published by Bantum Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, a division of Random House, Inc.)
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” – Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
16-year-old Vivian Gandillon is a loup-garou—a werewolf—living in present-day Maryland. She and her widowed mother, Esme, remain in close contact with the remaining members of their pack, who are struggling hard to survive within human society after yet another arson-caused fire killed many of their kind—including Vivian’s father who was the pack’s leader. This results in continual bitter arguments and violence between pack-mates, making Vivian increasingly depressed and lonely. Despite these feelings, however, Esme warns Vivian against getting too close to humans and tells her to stay with the Five, a gang of boys who are the only other teens in the pack, but they only make matters worse with their recklessly immature behavior and their obvious desire of Vivian as a mate rather than a friend. But one day, after reading a human classmate’s poem, which contains lovely and surprisingly accurate descriptions of a werewolf transformation, Vivian decides to take a chance and find the writer: a boy named Aiden. A sensitive lover of magic and philosophy, Aiden appears to be Vivian’s intellectual and spiritual match in every way, but she naturally must hide her animal side from him, much to her chagrin. While she walks the fine line between her love for Aiden and her loyalty to the pack, a man suddenly turns up dead—with suspicious wounds that could only have been made by a werewolf. With a traitor in their midst and the police coming ever closer to the truth of her kind’s existence, Vivian is left with fears could destroy both her life and the lives of those she cares for, both human and werewolf.
The werewolf pack as Klause has created it is like its own tight-knit community and even subculture, to a degree, with its own religion—Vivian often uses expressions/curses like “Great Moon” or “Goddess”—its own sayings, such as “Don’t date if you can’t mate” (since werewolves and humans can’t breed together), and even its own slang terms, such as “meat-people”, a derogatory word for humans. More to the point, unlike some traditional books of this kind, the protagonist here is neither regretful nor inwardly tortured because of what she is. On the contrary, it is perhaps the greatest joy of her existence. The strength, the swiftness, the physical experience of the transformation and the sheer beauty of the creature she becomes, are all nothing short of ecstasy for Vivian. Accordingly, Klause peppers the story with numerous sexual metaphors to describe and compare the imagery of bodily changes and carnal desires, among other things, as exemplified in one of the finest portrayals of a werewolf transformation that I’ve ever seen in literature:
“Like all her people, at the full moon she had to change whether she wanted to or not, the urge was too strong to refuse. Other times she could change at will, either partway or fully. Right now the moon swelled like a seven-month belly, and she wanted to change because it was possible. She wanted to run for the joy of it.
She stalked through the backyard dusk, across the bat-grazed clearing in the narrow ribbon of woods out back, over the stream, up the embankment, and down into the wide grassy valley that held the river.
The grass was already high. Here and there might be nests made by kids making out or getting high, but she sniffed the air and smelled no human flesh.
Down by the river was a giant tumble of rocks that screened the riverbank. Behind the rocks, amid the shoulder-high weeds, she slowly slid off her clothes. Already her skin prickled with the sprouting pelt. A trickle of breeze curled around her buttocks, and her nipples tightened in the cool air off the river. She laughed and threw her panties down.
Her laugh turned to a moan at the first ripple in her bones. She tensed her thighs and abdomen to will the change on, and clutched the night air like a lover as her fingers lengthened and her nails sprouted. Her blood churned with heat like desire. The night, she thought, the sweet night. The exciting smells of rabbit, damp earth, and urine drenched the air.
The flesh of her arms bubbled and her legs buckled to a new shape. She doubled over as the muscles of her abdomen went into a brief spasm, then grimaced as her teeth sharpened and her jaw extended. She felt the momentary pain of the spine’s crunch and then the sweet release.
She was a creature much larger and stronger than any natural wolf. Her toes and legs were too long, her ears too big, and her eyes held fire. Wolf was only a convenient term they had adopted. Those who preferred science to myth said they descended from something older—some early mammal that had absorbed protean matter brought to Earth by a meteorite.
Vivian stretched and pawed at the ground, she sniffed the glorious air. She felt as if her tail could sweep the stars from the sky.
I will howl for you, human boy, she thought. I will hunt you in my girl skin but I’ll celebrate as wolf. And she ran the length of the river to the edge of the city slums and back, under the hopeful early-summer moon.” (Pg. 29-31)
Vivian is not ashamed of her lust, either for love or for life. Through Vivian’s actions and personality Klause portrays the similarities between humans and animals that eat, mate, love, and live as nature intended, and how there can be no greater beauty than that.
But that’s not to say that Vivian is promiscuous or evil or even heartless—or that her ability is without its misgivings. Much as Vivian is proud of what she is, even the best intentioned of her people tend to, in her mind, disgrace if not outright abuse the power their wolf form gives them. Vivian wishes with all her heart that they could see what she sees and long for the same thing she wants: to enjoy their wolf form for its own sake, not to befoul the image of their race and their heritage by slaughtering one another. But Vivian comes to realize that she may not be as different—or noble—in this sense as she would like to believe. Should she ever see Aiden during a full moon, for instance, she will have less control over the wolf transformation, and be at greater risk of inadvertently harming him:
“‘Dear Moon, he’s sweet, Vivian thought in anguish. A swift pang hit her gut, and she bit the inside of her cheek, hoping the pain would keep her sane. Not sweet like that, she screamed silently, staring with panicked eyes at her round firm thighs. [. . .]
How do I make him go? She thought as her joints began to pop. [. . .]
[. . .] He moved closer and put an arm around her. ‘You pick a funny time to go shy on me,’ he said.
Her shoulders shook with silent laughter at her stupidity. How could she think she could be intimate with a human? She detected an undeniable rippling up her spine, and a hardness came to her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She tested a new idea. So what if I hurt him?
‘Vivian?’ Aiden whispered. [. . .]
[. . .] It was a stupid thought. She doubled over and moaned. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Aiden asked, surprise and concern in his voice.
‘I think I’m coming down with the flu,’ she said. What a brainstorm. ‘Maybe you should go. I don’t want you to catch it.’
‘But someone should look after you if you’re ill.’ [. . .]
[. . .] A spasm ripped through her and the bones in her knees crunched. ‘Go! Please go!’ she yelled, and scrambled for the window like a drunk, her legs refusing to obey. ‘I’m going to be sick.’
She dove onto her bed, rolled to the floor, and spidered out of the room on knuckles and toes. She reached the bathroom at the end of the hall and slammed the door behind her. [. . .]
Outside the window the swollen moon leered at her over the tops of the trees.
She shuddered with pain, and tears outlined her downy face. She had never known a time when she hadn’t wanted the change, but now she was nauseated from holding it back. [. . .]
[. . .] She clenched her hand, withdrew her shaking fist, and curled into a tight, trembling ball on the bathroom floor. I won’t go out, she promised. I won’t go out. If she did, she might follow him and stalk him to his lair.
She shuddered into her final shape, raised her muzzle, and howled frustration at the porcelain tile. Her voice echoed about her like a curse.” (Pg. 65-67)
For all that he loves to consider the existence of otherworldly creatures and the mystical as a whole, Aiden is still very much a normal human boy with normal human perceptions of reality that Vivian, being a mystical creature herself, can’t always agree or identify with. And as the mysteriously murdered bodies keep piling up and a series of events begins to affect her memories of previous nights, Vivian can’t help but wonder if she really is nothing more than an ugly, bloodthirsty beast herself, incapable and undeserving of true love. As the book’s title suggests and its synopsis states: “What is [Vivian] really—human or beast? Which tastes sweeter—blood or chocolate?”
Like many teens her age, Vivian yearns for acceptance, and answers to her questions of her place in the midst of a chaotic and unforgiving world, a struggle made all the more difficult when even the closest of loved ones offer neither guidance nor comfort, and those who could are gone forever. But as she pursues these answers, not once does she ever lose her inner strength or the determination to stay true to herself.
A gorgeous blend of tragic teen love, identity crises, exciting wolf battles, and a murder mystery to boot, Blood and Chocolate is a rare delight for teens and adults looking for a fantasy tale that is as deep and smart as it is romantic and suspenseful.
CREDITS:
All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
All book excerpts are from Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause (1997 paperback edition; published by Bantum Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, a division of Random House, Inc.)
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” – Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
EPISODE SONGS:
“Lovely Dark” – Sean Zarn
“Lovely Dark” – Sean Zarn
“Soul of the Wolf” – Sean Zarn
“Death By Moonlight” – Sean Zarn
Download the full 15-minunte episode here!
Blood and Chocolate on Wikipedia
Annette Curtis Klause on Wikipedia
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Blood and Chocolate on Common Sense Media
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Buy Blood and Chocolate on Amazon
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Blood and Chocolate on Wikipedia
Annette Curtis Klause on Wikipedia
Blood and Chocolate on Goodreads
Blood and Chocolate on Common Sense Media
Blood and Chocolate on Tv Tropes
Buy Blood and Chocolate on Amazon
Buy Blood and Chocolate at Barnes & Noble
Buy Blood and Chocolate on EBay
^^ Back to Books, Graphic Novels, and Other Works of Literature