Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith

March 12th, 2008 at 9:08am |

Audience: High School

Rating: B

Synopsis:

Quincie’s got problems! She’s in love with her best friend, but he’s half-werewolf and keeping her at a distance. She in charge of her family restaurant, the legacy left behind when her parents died in a car crash, which is currently undergoing a makeover to a vampire-chic theme. In that restaurant, someone close to her was murdered and the cops suspect either a vampire or a werewolf. As Quincie tries to balance her emotions and her responsibilities, she finds herself increasingly drawn into a world where she doesn’t know who to trust and where to turn.

Chatter:

(Spoiler Alerts! ) I wanted to love this book. The title, cover, and premise are fantastic. I loved Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, and at first this book seemed like it would a Twilight story: only this time the Bella-character would choose the Jacob-werewolf-character instead of the Edward-vampire-character. It didn’t live up to that premise at all.

I felt that book still earned a ‘B’ rating because it kept my interest, but mostly it kept me engaged because I was waiting for the book to happen. I don’t mean that the plot was boring, because if anything the action happened too quickly. In fact, I think the opposite was true: I wish that there were less plot and more plot and character development.

Despite reading more than 300 pages from her point of view, I felt that I didn’t get to know Quincie at all… perhaps because her character was drunk for most of the novel, but more likely because there wasn’t any depth to her character. We read about how she and Kieren have this passionate, conflicted friendship; how they used to talk on the phone multiple times a day… but within the novel there isn’t any evidence of this. Without the proof of how tortured their friendship is, the rest of the plot falls flat because we can’t understand Quincie’s motivation.

The enigmatic ending was perhaps the best part of the novel. It left as many questions as it answered, and seems to be screaming ‘sequel,’ but from the poking around I did, it doesn’t seem like Smith intends to write any more about Quincie and Kieren. She is planning a new novel in their ‘world,’ called Eternal, but from what I’ve read, it has a different cast of characters. She is also releasing a graphic novel about Tantalize, but written from Kieren’s perspective. That could be interesting, but won’t be out until 2009. I’m not sure I’m intrigued enough that I’ll still be curious.

I am curious, however, to hear your thoughts on this book!