Thursday, January 13, 2011

Need - Carrie Jones

Zara, still getting over the death of her dad, is sent away to live with her Grandma Betty, by her mother, to Maine. Maine is cold and icy and Zara doesn't want to be there. But she makes friends fast, has the attention of two boys, and on the first day already has a best friend. But in the mist of making new friends Zara is being stalked by a man that shows up unexpectedly and, of all things, points menacingly at her and calls her name from the depths of the woods.

The book is an easy read. No real dull spots. The listing of phobias when Zara is nervous is kind of odd but I guess it helps differentiates this book from all the other books like it out there. The book has a lot of loose ends. Things don't add up. A couple examples are: Zara makes a point about going to the DMV and another character offers to go with her. She brings this up several times that she must go to the DMV, but then the that part of the book is completely skipped. Did she actually go to the DMV? It was important to her, she was also going with another character...if you are going to make it so important the least you can do is put a sentence saying she went!

There are so many instances that things don't add up. It is like the author didn't double check her writing to make sure everything made sense. And cast turned into a splint and then back to a cast, a bed turns into a couch from one sentence to another. Somehow a wolf can wear special glove for an eagle to land on him. At one point Zara uses a poker as a weapon outside. Later she is inside using the poker on the fire. Then a couple sentences later her grandma asks for the poker and Zara proclaims she left it by the door when she used it as a weapon. So, what happened to her seconds before using it at the fire?

Parts of conversations seem missing. Things feel rushed and not completely thought out by the author. The characters don't seem very in depth. At the beginning Nick is such a bad guy but it doesn't go into depth why and he does so much good things. For some reason Ian is called a user by Nick but it doesn't go into detail why, and then it is completely dismissed.

The book is very similar to other books out there: new school, meet boy fall in love, live by a woodsy area, parent figure not around, and super human speed. If you like Twilight, Shiver or The Darkest Power trilogy you will like this book.

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