Need by Carrie Jones or The Book That Yanked Me out of Vacation Mode

Need by Carrie Jones

Copyright 2009

Bloomsbury - Young Adult/Paranormal

306 pages

Need begins a paranormal young adult series that takes place in Maine, where Zara has moved after the death of her stepfather left her so paralyzed with grief that her mother thinks she needs a change of scenery. Later in the book, you find out there's more to the move from Charleston than just Zara's depression, but that's a spoiler I can't share with you.

In Maine, Zara quickly finds herself with one instant enemy, an energetic best friend and two handsome admirers. She also discovers that the man who seemed to be stalking her in Charleston was not a figment of her imagination, after all. He's still following her and wherever he goes, gold pixie dust is left behind.

Yep, this one has to do with pixies. It's amazing what a variety of paranormal books have become available in the past couple of years. This one contains pixies and their natural enemies -- the were, as in "werewolves" but not just wolves fall into the "were" category.

Need is enthralling, romantic (the guy she falls for is definitely every woman's dream -- maybe even a bit too perfect, at times) and at times very exciting. There were a few too many times I found myself mentally chanting at the heroine to go back inside, back inside, listen to the warnings everyone's giving you. But, other than that and the occasional grammatical error, the book is a good one and I'm definitely going to continue reading this series.

Which brings to mind the fact that I'm not normally a person who enjoys series books. I don't know what it is about paranormal YA books that I find so compelling -- maybe the fact that they're extremely escapist reads? But, I do find that I'm reading more series books since such a broad variety of paranormal young adult books have come on the market.

The cover is kind of bland, in my humble opinion, but it fits because of the gold pixie dust and the fact that a pixie kiss (which is something you really don't want to happen to you -- just do not kiss a pixie if you're ever tempted) figures into the storyline.

I checked this book out from the public library in my town. Their YA section is really improving, but there's a little irony . . . most of the YA books I check out seem to have been purchased with grant money from International Paper. How fascinating is that? By giving grant money for book purchases, they end up selling more paper.

In other news:

I'm really, really sick of housework and have a long way to go because Kiddo will be home, this semester (taking some of his core classes locally) and we've got to find a way to create a comfortable, quiet study area for him -- not easy in our crowded little house. Someone send me a house fairy? The good kind, of course -- the ones who magically make the messes go away and the tub scrub itself.

I have been pondering my 2011 reading and blogging goals, working on my list of all the books I read (with links -- that was really tiring) and gathering books for my personal challenge, which I'll tell you more about, later. There will be photographs. I know how you love photographs.

Both my husband and I have such small families that we get almost zippo gifts, so we just go out and buy ourselves one big gift, each year. I sent hubby out to buy little me a reader. At this point, I'm calling her Petunia and she only contains free books because my finger hasn't accidentally slipped and hit the "buy this book" button when the price has been over $0.00. <--- I love that price.

Hope you're all having a good time soaking up the post-holiday joy, preparing for the new year and reading, reading, reading all those presents you got. You got books, right? Technically, I didn't get any, however, Hubby kindly gave me a Borders gift card. I'll use it soon. I'm worried about Borders' financial health and mourning the closing of Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville, a magical place I had hoped to return to on future visits to Nashville. I cried alligator tears when I saw pictures of the empty shelves. Call me a sap, but that place was awesome.

Off to knock a random family member off my reading spot.

:)