Blood and Chocolate

Klause, Annette Curtis. Blood and Chocolate. Random Children's Bks. 1997; reprint. Delacorte Bks for Young Readers. 264p. pap. ~Vivian is a hot-blooded, teenaged werewolf, torn between the sweetness of her ""meat boy"" Aiden and the heat of Gabriel, the new leader of their pack of loups garoux. Why It Is Great: Ten years before Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, Klause made readers swoon with her tales of teen vampires and werewolves in love. Her first novel, The Silver Kiss (1992), used vampires as a metaphor for death and grief. Lovely stuff. Why It Is for Us: Blood and Chocolate is, on one level, an unironic feminist manifesto. With her sexual self-confidence and sensual description of werewolf physicality, Vivian is the anti-Bella some Twilight fans are looking for..