So the reason that I'm doing four books at once is because I read the first three all over again to prepare for the fourth book, Endure which was just recently published.
Okay, so I will start out with Need. This book is about a girl, Zara White, who moved to Bedford, Maine from Charleston after her step-father died from a heart attack. Zara's mother sent her here because she was fading emotionally and her mother felt the move might help restore her. There, Zara meets Isse, Devyn, and Nick who become her best friends. Nick becomes her protector and they eventually fall in love. In Bedford she starts seeing the same man she saw in Charleston at the airport as she was leaving. When she tells her friends, they try to tell her that he's a pixie and he's stalking her. At first, she is skeptical but once teenage boys start disappearing and she sees gold glitter everywhere, she begins to believe them. They tell her that pixies aren't like Tinkerbell, but are human-sized monsters with needs. A need is what pixies get when their king has gone too long without a queen. They take boys and torture them and feed on their blood and their souls until they die. Zara needs to stop this and keep the town protected, but that's easier said then done. So, some people say that this book starts out much like Twilight, with a girls mom sending her to live with a family member in a much colder environment than what she is used to. But the references pretty much end there. On the back of this book, in the praise, it says "If you got Stephanie Meyer and Stephen King to write a book together, you'd get Need." If your not a Twilight fan, like me, don't fear, because I loved this book nonetheless.
Next up is Captivate. This is the second book in the series, and is, like many sequels, a sad novel. In this book, Zara, Isse, Nick, and Devyn start writing a manuel called "How To Survive A Pixie Attack"..which is actually kind of ironic considering the turn of events this book takes. It all starts out, believe it or not, with Zara fighting off a Valkyrie to save a pixie. Valkyrie's are women who take fallen warriors to Valhalla to await the final epic battle that will determine the fate of the Earth. Later, Nick dies at the hands of Frank, an evil pixie, and is taken by a Valkyrie. Zara finds out that the pixie she saved in the beginning of the book is Astley, who is a good pixie king. He needs a queen to remain strong and to help control the "needs" of his people. He has his eyes set on Zara. But Zara is still trying to get Nick back from Valhalla, and soon learns that she can't do that if she's human. The only thing I didn't understand about this book is why she never really trusts Astley, which I find strange because he has done so much to prove that he is a good pixie who does not believe in killing. It's only in the third book that she really starts trusting him.
Entice is the third book in the Need series. This book is an interesting one, because they are still searching for Valhalla to get Nick back. Zara is now a pixie, but the good kind, along with her pixie king, Astley. I begin to like Astley a lot more in this book because even though Zara is his queen, and his feelings for her are quite different than hers for him, he still helps her get Nick back. They go to Iceland in search of Valhalla, steal a pixie named BiForst, visit Astley's evil mother, and after tons of dead ends and a whole lot of death, they finally find the infamous Valhalla. They bring Nick back, and everything's suppose to be hunky-dory, right? Wrong. My only problem with this book is this: when Zara finally does get to Valhalla, they seem fine with her bringing Nick back. I mean, sure, she does have to 'defeat' the pixie that killed Nick, but that's pretty much it. The guard lets her through easily, and so does everybody else. It just seems strange to me. I don't have much to wail about with this book, so I'm afraid to say that's about it.
The last book in the series is Endure. Personally, this is my favorite, because she and Astley get closer, and I always felt they were supposed to be together. Nick is upset that she's turned into a pixie and treats her badly which is something I don't get. This time, they are in search of Hel which is not as bad as it sounds. They are trying to prevent the end of the world, and they learn that Zara is the key to preventing AND starting the apocalypse. They go to Iceland again, and they find and meet Hel, the ruler of Hel. Hel is not the same thing as Hell and actually...no I'm not going to give away anything major. They do prevent the end of the world, but with some sacrifices and bravery.
Once again, I don't have anything to wail on, save for maybe one thing. When Zara turns into a pixie, Nick is a total jerk and wants nothing to do with her. But then when Zara turns back into a human, Nick is all "I love you and want to be with you", and I totally thought that that was not right at all. He treated her like the plague when she was all pixied-out, but when that changed, he was a totally different person. Can you tell I am not too impressed with Nick?
Okay, well that's my super-duper blog for this month, so I hope it's satisfying. Until next time, read on.
-Amba
