While I'm busy moving into my house for the next few weeks, my cousins Olivia (16) and Elliot (13) will be blogging for me! These are their own opinions and their own reviews of the books they've read. Thanks guys! You're awesome.

Need by Carrie Jones
reviewed by Olivia

I enjoyed this book despite the flawed plot and ‘amateur’ writing style. I hate to use that term especially because this isn’t Jones’s first book, but there were time gaps and the main conflict wasn’t explained fully. The story deals with one person’s take of a situation and needed the opposing side to make a complete picture. Explaining the conflict would explain the title.

I remember finishing the book and having to find a link between the title and the story. Zara, our main character, was shipped off to the backlands of Maine in order to keep her safe after her father’s unexpected death. A good start; the audience now has a reason to keep reading. Why was her father in danger and why would sending her to Maine help?

Jones cheats by not answering the first question completely and—I don’t think this will reveal anything but—sending Zara to Maine was the last thing I would have done to keep her safe. I had that figured not to far along in the plot.

The other characters, while a bit stereotypical, are well written and interesting. Her unofficial boyfriend Nick has more depth than some characters I’ve read and more depth than her best friend Issie or Nick’s best friend Devyn. On Jones’s behalf she wrote Nick’s secret quite well, I only had it figured from reading many similar books.

It was odd that all characters so readily accepted the existence of pixies and faeries. In all other books of this sort there is at least an initial doubt. Zara’s obsession with fears doesn’t really tie into the story and though it heads each ‘chapter’ it does a poor job of describing the chapter.

As for Jones’s style, the story flowed well with only a few places where the timeline gapped. Scenes were well described, giving readers a good mental picture without being flowery. The suspense was not overdone and helped move the story along. There was a reference to the work of Stephen King, but seeing as I haven’t read any of his books I can’t say if Jones was trying to mimic his particular style. I really enjoyed Nick’s confession scene and the scenes involving the mysterious man Zara sees were creepy enough to make me stop reading early in the morning.

The end, however, was unsatisfying and cruel; I felt that Zara and her gang should have handled the situation differently and perhaps more diplomatically. Again I think their actions might have been justified if I knew more about the pixie's predicament and his feelings and motives.

All in all a good book; not particularly enlightening, but a delicious guilty pleasure.