This is the graphic novel version of the book Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith, told from the point of view of the male character, Keiren. Keiren's best friend Quincie has lost her parents and is struggling to keep their restaurant going with a new vampire themed design and menu. The restaurant's chef is brutally murdered and Keiren, a werewolf, is the prime suspect. Although Keiren's feelings for Quincie are growing into something deeper, he struggles to keep away because he will be leaving soon to a secret werewolf training camp. He is worried about her change in clothing and behavior, and suspects the restaurant's new chef in the continuing string of violent killings and of trying to seduce Quincie. I think the artwork in this graphic novel is absolutely hideous, so bad that it distracts from the story and I had a hard time just finishing it. Beyond the artwork, the storyline is so disjointed and disconnected it was hard to follow. I highly recommend just sticking with the novel and leaving this version alone. ( )

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

If I’m being fair, the story itself does deserve 3 stars…the graphics, however, I’d say probably two and a half stars. It’s not that they were bad, they really weren’t, its just I think they could have been much better.

Now onto the actual story.

“Tantalize: Kieren’s Story” is the graphic novel version of “Tantalize”, which was released in 2007 by Candlewick Press. As the title suggests, the graphic novel tells the story of Kieren, as opposed to the novel which tells the story of Quincie.

This is definitely a nice companion to “Tantalize”, in fact I think it may actually be better than the original novel – story wise. Then again, that may be because I found Kieren’s story to be more interesting. With Quincie, I couldn’t understand her choices before. With this graphic novel, and the story being told by Kieren, you get a much better feel for what’s truly going on.

Overall, the graphic novel is definitely worth checking out.

If you haven’t read “Tantalize” yet, in my opinion, I wouldn’t say it’s mandatory to do so in order to read the graphic novel – it works pretty well on its own. ( )