Book Review: Craving the World

Craving the World is a self-published YA novel that follows Marissa Torres as she leaves home for her first year at college. There, she’s faced with the uncertain nature of her faith (having been content to follow in the dictates of her family without making her faith her own), her desire to stretch her wings as a young adult on her own, and her deep seated need to have a boyfriend for the first time in her life.

Marissa is a well drawn character who probably exemplifies many girls her age leaving home for the first time. She is perhaps a bit over the top in her need for a boyfriend, though that, too, is quite realistic in many circumstances (in many ways, the fact that I wanted to shake her repeatedly serves to show how realistically she was written.) The secondary characters also feel real (and pretty much all of them, save for Marissa’s roommate, inspire a desire to shake them at one point or another. I suspect this might also stem from the fact that I’m older than the target market. Were I a typical high school girl, I probably wouldn’t have the same reaction.) The story is well plotted and follows a Spiritual coming of age as well as an emotional one. Readers who enjoy Melody Carlson’s Diary of a Teenage Girl series would probably enjoy this book as well.

There are a few cases where one more solid edit might have tightened up some scenes, as well as a few places where the pace could have been a bit faster, but it never hit a place where I felt things were dragging (or where I had to set it down and go do something else because I was bored) – and once you reach the half-way point, the pace settles into a good clip that keeps the pages turning to the end. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit and hope to see more from the author.