Need - Carrie Jones

Need by Carrie Jones
Date Released: December 23rd 2008
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children Books
Pages: 306 Pages
Format:  Paperback
Source: BF shelf

Summary 

Zara White suspects there's a freaky guy semi-stalking her. She's also obsessed with phobias. And it's true, she hasn't exactly been herself since her stepfather died. But exiling her to shivery Maine to live with her grandmother? That seems a bit extreme. The move is supposed to help her stay sane...but Zara's pretty sure her mom just can't deal with her right now.

She couldn't be more wrong. Turns out the semi-stalker is not a figment of Zara's overactive imagination. In fact, he's still following her, leaving behind an eerie trail of gold dust. There's something not right - not human - in this sleepy Maine town, and all signs point to Zara.

In this creepy, compelling breakout novel, Carrie Jones delivers romance, suspense, and a creature you never thought you'd have to fear.

My Review:

First I discovered the Need… and boy I did. The first thing that captivates me about Need – another lame joke placed here, get it, need and captivated. Ha! - *Clears throat and regain composure* Like I was saying, the first thing that captivates me about Need, is its main character – Zara. A strong and original female character, with a save-the-world kind of mentality and a peculiar thing of her, is that she “collects” phobias. Likes them a lot and can basically mention you every phobia there is. I personally think that characters that have little details like this one simply help make them more unique, complex, and that it gives them a good amount of reality. So just by Zara, Need got various points from me.

And then there’s a man – one that stalks her and one that… it’s not really a man. Just a boy, a Cute boy. More than cute really. Hot. Steaming Hot – Nick. Nick who has a Hero complex and a Macho personality – his words, not mine – at times totally cute and adorable and at others a total jerk – I’ll explain later on.

As for creepy stalking man, well, he’s really: Creepy Pixie Stalking Man!! ZOMG! Obviously there’s more to it but I can’t explain without telling spoilers. I will NOT spoil.

As a general view, I really liked the book, it wasn’t super epic or anything. But a nice, light paranormal fantasy novel. I saw in a few reviews that they though that the book was very lacking of descriptions, but personally that’s one of the things I liked about it. I really hate it when they take 3 or 4 pages to describe things like fountains and stuff, the fact that this book wasn’t that way made Need a simple read, describing just about enough, and leaving everything else to your broad imagination, and in my head, Need left a good impression and a clear picture.

Funny, dark, thrilling, exciting and filled with evil creatures, this book becomes a Need you can’t deny.

Only thing that could have gone better was Zara’s boyfriend Nick, whom needs to learn to be more considerate and less of a jerk, but this is where Astley comes in…. buy that’s a whole other story.

Get ready to be Captivate…

The only thing that scares me now is me.
The Zara I might become. The Zara I don't ever want to be.
Everybody has fears, right? But how many have my fear?
Enough, it seems. Because there's a name for it.


Autophobia.
Fear of oneself