Captivate , by Carrie Jones

Hardcover, 273 pages

Published January 5th 2010 by Bloomsbury USA

ISBN

1599903423 (ISBN13: 9781599903422)

edition language

English

original title

Captivate

url

http://www.needpixies.com/

series

Need #2

characters

Nick Colt, Betty, Cassidy, Devyn, Zara White

setting

Maine (United States) 

Zara and her friends knew they hadn't solved the pixie problem for good. Far from it. The king's needs grow deeper every day he's stuck in captivity, while his control over his people gets weaker. It's made him vulnerable. And now there's a new king in town.

A turf war is imminent, since the new pixie king, Astley, is moving in quickly. Nick nearly killed him in the woods on day one, but Zara came to his rescue. Astley swears that he and Zara are destined to be together, that he's one of the good guys. Nick isn't buying it, though Zara isn't as sure -- despite herself, she wants to trust the new king. But it's a lot more than her relationship with Nick that is at stake. It's her life -- and his. 

 My Review
It was a little better than the first book, but not so majorly that I couldn't put it down and stop reading it. In many ways the book just seemed to be so rushed to me, like the new pixie arrives and he is different to everyone else, more characters become involved that were never there to begin with and Nick, well who knows what has actually happened to him, if he will be back and ok. However what really annoyed me was the whole changing process of human to pixie, it just seemed well blah. Like in the first book they made it sound like a really dangerous process, something that you could possibly regret if you remembered your past and the life that you lived. But here, they just made it seem so simple and normal and just well, fine. It kind of reminded me, in a way, of the bit in breaking dawn where bella wakes up as a vampire but is completely different to other vampires. So yes, in a way that was lame. it needed a little something more to just give it the spark it needed to really grab my attention. I think in a way this is probably why I am getting so annoyed with the series because it is somewhat cliche. its almost as if the author has taken a bit of different books and just thrown them all together.

However, I don't want to completely diss the author or the book because it is not all negatives. there are some great depths and details within the novel that could be highlighted and expanded on in so many ways for the more mature reader. Perhaps this is where its lacking, that sense of imagery thqat sense of imagination, that sense of being able to dive into a whole new world and forget the real one around you. I could see the potential there within the books pages, like the icea and context of the novel was a good idea, but just needed expanded on and so I do enjoy the books in that way because in my mind I am reading them how I would imagine them to be as well. Perhaps this is the sort of book though that is meant for the younger reader and I am reading at the age of 21, nearly 22, when I should be reading other novels?

I am going to give this novel a three out of five merely because I can imagine myself reading it at say, the age of 13. I can see that the novel itself does have a great storyline within its depth and that there is a lot of potential for it to become a much stronger and more vibrantly alive novel. Its not all bad, but its not brilliant either and it is clearly lacking that something that would make it a four star rating.

My rating