Thursday Oldie: Need by Carrie Jones

CLICK HERE TO READ AN UPDATED VERSION OF THIS REVIEW! 

So as you guys know, I just moved here. And that means my old blog now lies abandoned... alongside all my old reviews. But because I feel like some of them don't deserve such an awful treatment, I'm going to slowly move my favorite reviews here, especially if my opinion differs than Megs. (though some editing may occur, as I'm a little OCD about my reviews, and the older they originally are, the more likely I am to have things I want to rephrase). 

Need by Carrie Jones
Series: Need #1
Source: own paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publication Date: December 8th 2009
Age Genre: Young Adult
Originally published: Sep 14, 2012

Zara collects phobias the way other girls collect Facebook friends. Little wonder, since life's been pretty rough so far. Her father left, her stepfather just died, and her mother's pretty much checked out. Now Zara's living with her grandmother in sleepy, cold Maine so that she stays safe. Zara doesn't think she's in danger; she thinks her mother can't deal. Wrong. Turns out that guy she sees everywhere, the one leaving trails of gold glitter, isn't a figment of her imagination. He's a pixie--and not the cute, lovable kind with wings. He's the kind who has dreadful, uncontrollable needs. And he's trailing Zara. With suspense, romance, and paranormal themes, this exciting breakout novel has readers rapidly turning the pages.

So I decided I'm going to just balance things out - one good and one bad review a month. For this month, I'm bringing Need - the first "bad" review and rating I ever posted (originally on Goodreads).

Need got that particular honor for being one of the most disappointing books I've ever read - and I came into it without any expectations whatsoever. I knew nothing about the book prior to reading it; it was before Goodreads, before knowing such information was so easy to find.

And still it managed to completely crush me - because it started out so good, with the quirky chapter titles, laugh worthy moments, and a cool seeming heroine. But all that was just at first. Very quickly, it started going downhill, and the plot started getting on my nerves... big time. Honestly, if anything, this book makes me feel cheated.

Zara is our MC, and I didn't like her much as a character. I hated the way she behaved toward her mother, only remembering she loved her at the end.
Then we have Nick, the resident hot guy and--naturally--the love interest and semi-main character. He had his sweet moments, but they were mostly ruined by his super jerk ones...

Actually, I liked the side characters - Issie and Devyn - a whole lot better than Nick or Zara. Kind of wish we had a lot more of them.

I had one, huge issue with the whole lot of them, and it was the sad, unfortunate fact that they were all extremely, insanely... stupid. They never ask the right questions. Or, rather, any questions at all. They just accept everything and wait for something to happen next, without any effort of their part. I mean, c'mon!

For example, they find a note. In that note, mentioned a peculiar story of a sacrifice and running away, alongside a small mention about pixies. Do they ask any questions--what's it about, who wrote it, etc? Even just among each other? Err, no. They just take notice of the pixie thing and ignore everything else.

But above everything else... worse than being annoying or stupid, was the fact I did not find them believable at all. Their behavior, actions and reactions all rang kind of false and scripted. They never jumped out of the pages, never felt alive.

For such dead characters, you'd be amazed at how exasperated I got by the romance (or whatever the hell that was). But, well, this is insta love after all. The kind of insta love that makes you pull your hairs out. They know absolutely nothing about each other. If you asked them, they could fill maybe a sentence or two of the most superficial information about each other. And from that, they go to I Love Yous, kissing and cuddling and finding the other's presence a magical balm to all ills in the world. Even though, you know, love will probably not stop the crazy creatures after you from stealing your humanity. But, whateve', kissing's way more important.

Then came the ending. I don't think I've ever read of a silliest ending, before reading this book and after. It was just ridiculous, but at least they kept to the idiot-ism surrounding this whole story. The logistics made no sense, lady luck played a much too big a part, and former traits of the pixies just vanished at the convenience of the heroes. Oh, and let's not forget - how nice of the bad guys to listen to the good, right!? Jolly nice of you, mate!

The review is now officially over. The following segment is a breakdown of the many things that bothered me throughout the read that just didn't make sense. Therefore, it's made of spoilers. There's no point in hiding such a huge text-wall, so just skip it if you don't want to read those!

Pixies are the first suggestion after the "Pointing Man" appears 

What's up with that? Nick tells Zara they didn't know pixies existed prior to that week, so how do they jump to pixies so quickly and surely? Why is that their first and only guess, and why does everyone simply accept and believe it? 

(And for someone who claims pixies are new to him, Nick sure seems knowledgeable...)

Speaking of which...

How come they don't know of pixies--or realize there's a couple so close by?

According to the book, they can smell them. And, as we find out near the end, their whole lives they've had a couple of pixies right next to them, interacting with them on a daily basis. Yet, they claim not to know of pixies, and never realizes those two are among them? Are you kidding me? Shouldn't they realize both pixies exist and that those people aren't human if they can smell them?! You can't have it both ways! 

Why is the glittering dust so special and frightening? 

Did I miss something? why is the idea of the dust proof of the existence of the unknown? It's freakin' dust! It bothered me to no end that there was such big emphasize on it, especially as it was not found near Devyn's attack or something, just by Zara's car. For all they know, her Grandma likes to sparkle things up! But somehow, it's cutting proof of pixies.  

Did I miss the part where it suddenly woke to life, flew up in the air creating shapes then wrote in a hiss "The Pixies are Coming"? (cause that would've been totally awesome). It's glitter, people! 

Zara's fast and startling recovery

She comes to Maine a brokenhearted girl in mourning. Numb, unmoving, losing her passion for all the things that were dear to her heart before her father's death. After a week there she's... better. Barely gives a second thought to her dad. So much better, in fact, that all she wants to do is make out with Nick. WTF, girl?

The King should've been able to enter the room 

If the rules says you need permission to enter a place, Zara shouting "why won't you open the door, then?" and "Go ahead!" should count as plenty permission, even if it was shouted as a taunt. I think what she did here was stupid, and the fact it "succeeded" even stupider. 

THIS sentence: "I've been denying everything. That there were pixies... that there was something supernatural going on... how hollow I've been... who my father is."

Please tell me this is some leftovers from an early draft of the story or something, because this sentence contradicts everything we've read so far. She accepted the pixies and supernatural almost immediately, no denial there. She's the one who's been calling herself "hollow" the whole book, pushing the words into everyone's mouth. And she couldn't have known who her father is (she never asked enough questions for that), and when she does find out - she accepts it immediately! 

I spent five minutes reading this sentence again and again to try to figure out if I was truly reading it!

I think it's obvious I don't recommend this book, even though it's fairly well loved. I especially don't recommend it to Twilight haters, and I'm not even among those! 

Nitzan★