Review: Need by Carrie Jones

title: Need

written by: Carrie Jones

series: Need #1

genres: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance

page count: 306

publication date: December 23rd, 2008

publisher: Bloomsbury

Pain shoots through my head. Fireworks. Explosions. All inside my brain. The white world goes dark and I know what's about to happen.

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.

This book had me at its first page. No, with its first word, even! Zara's obsession with phobias was genius and I loved it! However, somehow I lost my interest in reading it halfway. It all started off so amazing, but the whole idea just got boring after 200 pages or so.

Zara White has just lost her stepfather, and the author really focused on that. I have never lost a (step)parent so I can't imagine how it would feel like. I just thing it would be so empty, like a place that can't be filled. And that's how the author described it. Zara is not dealing with her emotional pain, and that's why her mother sent her to the mother of her late stepfather. Did this help her? Not really. Did it change her life? Hell yeah!

The mysterious stalker wasn't that mysterious. it was pretty obvious who and what he was. But that might just be me. I ususally don't have a hard time figuring out a books' plot. It made the book less interesting to me, and that was my main issue with this book. But I understand that as an author it's nearly impossible to find the balance between predictable and random. Too random will make everyone go 'Dafuq just happened' but predictable is equal to boring.

The characters weren't very kick-butt, but they weren't bad either. Zara White did impress me with her knowledge of phobias. Really, there are some crazy phobias out there, and Zara knows them all! The chapter names really made me enjoy the book more. They gave away a little bit about what was going to happen, but not to much. I love books with chapter names, it's so mucht better than just 'chapter 1'!

I would recommend this book to teenage girls who are looking for a quick and fun read. I give it 2.5 stars, but I might check out the next book in the series, I will give it a shot, because the story still has a lot of potential, as it was quite original and funny at multiple points.

Happy reading!

Mar