Need ~ Carrie Jones review

Need (Need Pixies #1)
Bloomsbury USA Children's Books
December 8, 2009
338 pages
Buy/Info @ Amazon


After her stepfather dies, on their kitchen floor, right in front of her, Zara has trouble dealing. Her mother gets so worried about her that she sends Zara to Maine to live with her stepfather's mother. The transition from warm, sunny Charleston to snowy--already in October!--Maine is challenging at first for Zara.

Not only is she dealing with the death of the only father she's ever known and getting used to freezing temperatures and snow, but there's a mysterious guy she keeps seeing--one that she first saw at the airport in Charleston.

The friends she soon makes, Issie, Devyn, and Nick help her investigate this mysterious character and just who--or what he might be.


I doubt it's spoilery to say this series has pixies in it, but it should be mentioned for the review. I do like that the whole story isn't pixies!pixies!pixes right from page one. Zara's introduction to her new school and the characters takes is well done and introduces the story well, it sets everything up and establishes all of the relationships so that when the 'supernatural' is brought in you already like the characters.

I really enjoy books that have a plot that the progresses and develops and characters that are well rounded and developed with supernatural elements woven in (which is not to say that the supernatural is not a large part of this novel).

As with almost every book that has a 'new student' character, Need seemed to have Zara's start at the school be very, very easy for her based on my experiences--but that's fiction.

I really liked Gram and Issie especially, they were both great side characters and I hope they're featured a lot in the next books.

While this book has been compared a lot to Twilight and I suppose I can see that, I don't really think it's much like that novel at all. They do both have teen girls who are sent from a warm state to a colder state by their mothers and start a new school and there's a mysterious male character, but that's about all.

I think Need is much better than Twilight--I read Captivate much, much faster than I've so far managed to read New Moon!

Need also has one of my favorite endings of any of the books I've read lately. I was worrying that it was ending soon, that it would wrap up too quickly, but then I just loved the ending.


**Audio book note: Some of this I read and some of it I listened to the audiobook. I really do suggest the audiobook if you have access to it. The narrator does a great job and it's a lot of fun to be able to listen to the accents of the different characters, too. **


9/10