Endure by Carrie Jones

The Need Series

Need, Captivate, Entice, Endure

Published: May 8th 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Website: Series website

Introduction

            The final book of the tetralogy, Endure is about avoiding Ragnarok and driving the evil pixies out of Bedford. Betty is still missing and the pixies are even hunting girls now. Some interesting gods become involved and Zara has to rise to the occasion and become a leader. But now that Nick is back with them, he complicates everything by detesting what Zara has become to save him: a pixie.

Zara has to decide who her heart wants, but he might not love her anymore.  

 

Cover

            The other covers are beautiful and relate to the story; the cover of Endure just seems lazy to me. Instead of gold glitter, there is a single gold eye on a face that is horizontal. Aside from battles when girls are knocked down, when is anyone ever laying down? At some point Zara jumps into something, but as far as I know, she didn’t just jump and position herself horizontally midair like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Is the gold eye supposed to resemble pixie-dom? Because I don’t recall pixies having unusual eye colours.

Isla

            The pixie queen of crazy came back to mess everything up. I wish she was in more of the series, as she is powerful and nuts. Jones should write a tetralogy on her life and shenanigans. She is only in this book for a few pages and then gone forever, but she has a lot of knowledge and strength that could be used for other books.

Zara

            For the protagonist, there was a lot of character growth in this book. She has to step up as a leader, not just as a pixie queen, but as a leader of an army against Frank and Isla. The last time, in Entice, when she tried to give a speech to her own pixies she ran away. In Endure, she has to convince beings she doesn’t know to help protect Bedford and the rest of the world. It seems like the last three books had her changing and leading up to this point.

Hel

            Hel, as the place and the goddess, is very cool and handled in a way that is accurate enough, even with the artistic liberties that Jones took. Not a bad place, not glorified like Valhalla, not a good goddess, but not evil or malicious either. It is a place where the dead go if you don’t die in battle, ruled by someone who just has to, who didn’t make the rules. This is another character that I wish received more presence.

Nick

Spoilers Ahead!

            Who could still be team Nick by this book? He says he can’t stand Zara’s smell, she has no soul, etc. How is choosing between Astley and Nick difficult? Yes, I’d be heartbroken that Nick decided to be bigoted and forget what Zara did for him and that she’s getting stronger to protect everyone. Of course, Zara goes through another change and Nick is right there to tell her that he loves her.

            I also detest that he doesn’t like that she has gotten stronger and, yes, killed pixies. But he kills pixies to protect people too. He is so hypocritical it is mind-boggling. I’ve said it before, but everyone grows and changes. People who can’t accept change should be avoided in the long-run, because change is a part of life.

            So, after all this, who is still team Nick? Show of hands, please. Anyone who raised their hands needs a crash course about what an abusive relationship looks like, because that’s what Zara would be getting if she ended up with Nick.

Ending

Spoilers Ahead!

            Loki’s, “Oh, my wife and I forgot that I could have escaped centuries ago, derp.” and Astley’s betrayal and then not-betrayal was asinine and seen a mile away (though it still infuriates me).

            Then Zara jumps into the Hellmouth like it’s an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to stop the apocalypse. The book can’t decide what Zara is at this point, or what she’s becoming as she jumps in. But apparently getting pixie-kissed is more like getting friend-kissed, I guess, because the end is love is magic, and by extension, platonic love (friendship) is magic.

 

             Then it is three or four months later and everyone is sitting on the grass, talking about mundane stuff. Astley is taking high-school classes, which seems pointless. Wouldn’t he have a post-secondary education by now, or at the very least have already graduated high school? What bothers me the most is that Nick and Zara talk about their relationship right in front of Astley and everyone, including Astley, is ok with it. This doesn’t happen in real life. Your new partner does not want to hear about the details of your past relationship. I’m not saying that you can’t explain stuff (example: an ex didn’t let you have a credit card, drive, go to school, or have a job, all the scary stuff that can affect you now that needs an explanation), but don’t talk about the good times. Most people don’t want to hear it. Maybe if they ask about it, then sure, if you want to talk about it. Otherwise, no one is that cool that they can listen to their partner talk with their ex about their relationship in a positive light.     

Final Verdict

            The Need series has come to a close and I will still say that my favourite was the first book, Need, followed by the last book, Endure. I still find the introduction of Norse mythology to be strange and unneeded. A saving grace for me is Astley, who is a gentleman and patient with Zara, though he is a glutton for punishment for taking on the task of saving Zara’s dead boyfriend when she is in love with him. Betty and Isla were also strong and likable characters that held my attention, and Zara is a protagonist that is stronger than most, though she is driven so strongly she might be called selfish by some. Overall, the series took a turn after the first book, so if people stop reading after the first one, I wouldn’t blame them, though I think the series is highly enjoyable either way. 

Need by Carrie Jones

The Need Series

Need, Captivate, Entice, Endure

Published: December 23rd 2008
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Website: Series website

This book is one of the books that I have re-read many times since I first read it; I have read Need so many times it is only second to my re-readings of Pullman’s The Golden Compass. It was my first distinctly YA book that I had ever read, and from that moment on, I knew that I wanted to work with teens in a library. Although my aims have changed slightly since then, Need is a book that propelled me in a direction that I greatly enjoyed.

Like The Replacement, this is another book that I adore and I happened to see the pile of negative reviews on Goodreads. Instead of minding my own business and getting the cover image and leaving, I read some of the overwhelmingly negative reviews. One day I’ll learn, but in this review, I’ll address some of the issues that readers have that I disagree with. But what I see a lot of is people comparing her to Meyer and claiming Meyer is better (lol cute), or compare her to Stephen King (that's not even fair), or they say she was riding the coat tails of the Twilight epidemic and ripped Twilight off (and they write this as though Twilight is the most original and worship-worthy literature ever written).

Introduction

            After misfortune befalls Zara White, her mother sends her to Maine to live with her grandmother Betty. Zara has to deal with the usual problems of being the new kid in town, and she realizes the guy that was stalking her in her old city is now stalking her in Maine. This isn’t just any stalker; he leaves gold dust behind in the snow, and he calls her into the woods to get her lost. During all this, boys are going missing from the town. Zara is pulled into the world of the paranormal, and she has to uncover what she has to do with the pixies to stop the threat.

Atmosphere

            Need is set in a familiar high school setting and in the creepy, snow covered woods that has dangerous predators lurking behind the trees. It is snowing unusually early, giving the reader the impression that even nature is working against them. The aspect of the “boys” (young men, actually) going missing, and the revelation of their fates is particularly chilling, and I always enjoy a darker tale.

Writing

While I did find the dialogue and the writing a bit forced, I find Need to carry a more believable voice than other YA books (like Green's The Fault in Our Stars). Sure, Zara complains about the cold weather so much that Canada would like a word with her, and she says “freaking” a-freaking-lot. But she’s believable to me. You might not like her, and that’s completely different than being poorly written.

Zara

The protagonist is a nonaggressive pacifist. She is involved with Amnesty International and writes letters urging government leaders to release political prisoners and bring justice to all. YA lit is littered with protagonists that have no personality. Some say she's too perfect. Some say too flawed. Overwritten, underwritten. While she might not be everyone’s cup of tea, she has a personality that actually stands out above the Bella Swans of YA literature.

There are some beautiful descriptive moments of Zara with the man she calls her father. He definitely shaped her to be a progressive and protective young lady, but not in a way that was forceful. They shared interests like running and Amnesty International. Though he has passed away before the novel begins, his presence is recurrent in the rest of the series.

Cover

            I’ll talk about the covers because a common gripe is about the covers to this series. Need’s cover has the trees running up the girl’s neck and she has gold lips. Without trying to spoil too much, the act of kissing is more than “sucking face”. It is a change and something to be feared. The man who stalks Zara leaves behind gold dust. The danger in the novel is in the woods. The cover is what originally interested me enough to pick up the hardcover book and read the blurb. Not sure why people like to exclaim that the cover is meaningless.                     

Gripes

I'm not sure how they managed to "research" the pixies using Google, and I had that problem with Lost in Starlight, too. In this instance, I know they have to get their info from somewhere.

Beginning

There are lots of books/films/animes/videogames that start with the protagonist moving to a new area, being out of place, and hating it. If you can only throw out Twilight as a comparison, saying that Jones is ripping off Meyer, I'm going to say that you are not as well read as you like to think. It was done before Meyer. It is a trope that will always be used. It's ingrained in our storytelling because it is a situation that nearly everyone has, or will have, been through.   

Incest

            I’ve read some people have an issue with the “issue” of incest in this book, most from people who admit that they did not finish the book (DNFers). There actually isn’t any incest in this book, and the book even points it out. If you are going to write a scathing review of a book and include this kind of issue, you should at least flip ahead to see if it actually happens.

Ending and How Characters Change

Mild spoilers ahead!

I appreciate the ending because it does go against her beliefs. She knows there wasn't another option at the time. She had to make a decision and she did. Did you know that people change in real life? In fact, in books we call this a character arc. Zara changes even more in the next books.

For the people who say that they will not read the rest of the books because they don’t think Zara would have allowed the ending to happen, I say to stick with Twilight and characters that don’t grow.

Final Verdict

            If a library would like to infuse more paranormal adventures into their YA collection, give Need the space. It sports a character with a personality and who changes during the course of the book, a spooky atmosphere, and imaginative baddies. There are four books in the series, but this book acts like a stand-alone novel. I highly recommend it to readers who like the paranormal (with a stock that includes pixies and weres) and teen romance.