Captivate - Carrie Jones

Captivate is the second book in the Need Pixies series by Carrie Jones. Captivate was released in the UK on 5th April 2010 by Bloomsbury and is 288 pages long.

Plot

A couple of months after the last book finished and Zara and her friends are still dealing with the pixie problem. They knew that the problem wasn't totally solved but now something other than her Dad is causing major problems.

There is a new King in town and he is insistent that he is a good guy. On top of telling Zara that there are both good and bad pixies, she is also destined to be his Queen, something which she doesn't want to believe even for a second. Astley, the King informs Zara that more Kings are on the way due to her fathers imprisonment and they are going to want to take over his territory. She is quickly going to have to choose sides but Zara's mind is a complete mess, having to decide whether or not to listen to werewolf boyfriend Nick or listen to a pixie.

A huge war is coming and there are so many uncertainties for Zara, Nick, Issie, Devyn and now Astley. One thing is going to change everyone in a big way and it's something that no one saw coming.

What I thought
The plot could have been amazing after the way that Need left the story but it fell short. It showed a lot of promise but it was neither strong or consistent. I felt like there was a lot of little inconsistencies the whole way through which didn't tie the story as a whole together well enough. There is a lot going on thoughout most of the book and I felt it was a little too much at times. I guess I would have liked to have seen a little bit more quiet time and to have had the exciting/ action packed parts spaced out more. 

There seems to be a lot about mythology in this series but in each book I find that it doesn't go deep enough. Captivate started to go into all sorts of weird stuff about ancient Gods but it kind of confused me. It is one thing to mix different supernatural beings like vampires and pixies but throwing Gods into the mix seems too much.

The relationship between Zara and Nick is what bugged me most about this book. They were cute in Need but this time I hated everything about them. It was all very teenagerish with them calling each other 'baby' a lot etc. The way that they acted, even though it is obvious that they are meant to be besotted with each other, took away everything that was real and strong about their characters separately.

Astley, a pixie king is the best thing about this book. From the very first moment that we meet him, you can see that he is different but can't really tell why until the story gets going. Although I loved mostly everything about him, I'm a little bit sick of these love triangles in this genre. They are getting far too repetitive and although authors are trying to do something different each time, it doesn't seem all that different to me.

There is a part about half way through which should have been totally heartbreaking but it didn't have that effect on me. I found myself not caring as much as I should have and if it had been in any other of the books in this genre that I read then I probably would have cried my eyes out but I didn't even well up. I think this is mainly due to the fact that the main characters annoyed the hell out of me sometimes and that pushed me towards not caring.

One of the most interesting parts in the first book was Zara's obsession with phobias and it is sadly missing in Captivate. Zara still resorts back to chanting phobias when something is wrong but I loved the fact that there was little facts at the beginning of each chapter last time and I wish it had been used again to keep continuity. Instead, Zara lists different things to remember when dealing with pixies which ties into the book that she is trying to write but I just didn't like it quite as much.

Overall, I didn't like Captivate nearly as much as I liked Need but it did have a lot of good aspects. The third book in the series, Entice, is due for release in January and I will definitely be getting it to find out what happens next!