Zara White’s just moved into wintry Maine territory, a far cry from sunny Charleston. She’s been sent to live with her grandmother after the death of her stepfather, and finds herself struggling to adjust to the slew of new faces, and the unsettling feeling of being watched…
It’s not a bad first effort on Jones’s part – Need holds readers in veritable suspense for the first half of the book, which is more fluff than fantasy. While some obvious references are dropped here and there, the protagonist only discovers that the guy she’s got the hots for (Nick Colt) is a shapeshifting werewolf midway into the book. And it’s not just him, either. Her grandmother’s a weretiger. One of her newly acquired buds is a were-eagle. The school administrator is a werebear. And if things couldn’t get any weirder, Zara discovers that pixies aren’t all like what she’d imagined.
I’m kind of undecided to this point on the kind of audience Jones was shooting for – early into the story, I was under the impression that it was targeted to teens (tweens, even), given the high school setting and the varying degrees of “youthful innocence” her characters harbored. Come on. “Crap” isn’t even a halfway decent swear word, yeah? Additionally, the Romeo to Zara’s Juliet was too… virginal. Not all of the characters were bad, though Jones could have veered away from the trap of creating characters that fell into overly defined stereotypes: the typical bad boy (Nick), supportive best friend (Issie), creepy love rival (Ian), queen bitch (Megan)… The list goes on.
The story’s pace does pick up some after Zara finally finds out about the supernatural, the disturbing truth about pixies (and the lengths they go to feed), and the identity of her real father. Throw in kidnappings, multiple snowstorms, and a short (if action-packed) rescue mission, and you have Need. Fluffy at the start, with a darker twist wrapping up the story.
Recommended to those craving a quick urban fantasy fix. It’s no literary gem, but a passable read.
Plot/originality: 3/5
Characters: 2.5/5
Writing style: 2.5/5
Total score: 8/15
malicecat
silentfairies
