Book Review: Captivate by Carrie Jones

Summary (from Goodreads)

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 and thoughts  
 
I read Captivate straight after Need so it was very easy to get engrossed in the story and its characters again. It begins shortly after the first book Need and we find Zara and her friends facing more problems with the pixies as the needs of their King grows everyday as they remain shut away. Zara is plagued by guilt at this the decision she was forced to make to protect everything that means a lot to her as she fights for the freedom of individuals contained through Amnesty International. However, her boyfriend Nick finds it hard to understand when he feels such a hatred for the pixie race.
 

A lot of the story is focused on the relationship between Zara and Nick and how it grows as they spend more time with each other. I like both the characters and think that they fit each other well but I think that their romance was a little too soppy at points and after a while I became annoyed by Nick constantly calling her 'baby.' Although, like most couples enjoying first love obstacles soon form in their way and I found myself rooting for them.

 

Zara remains much the same quirky character and maintains the same distinctive narrative voice of Need and I really connected with her emotions and struggles throughout the book as she makes difficult decisions that will affect her life and the ones of her closest friends and family.

 However, the characters that I found most interesting in this sequel were Issy and Devyn because I felt there was a lot more character development for them. Issy matures a lot and experiences for the first time the teenage feelings of what seems to be unrequited love whilst Devyn seems to change from a geeky teenager to a young man.
One of the two new characters, a mysterious pixie called Astley who is convinced that Zara is destined to become his Queen puzzled me.  He stirred the plot up and provoked new feelings in Zara but I didn't feel that I knew enough about him to judge him as a character.  I got the impression that he was meant to be a rather sexy character that would make readers re-think how they want the story to go. There are so many big questions left for me to ponder- can he be trusted? Whose side is he really on?  It is almost as if Carrie Jones created this effect deliberately to make readers wanting to know more. If so, it certainly did the trick!

 

With the successively gripping events that move the story along, Captivate is a very good 'middle' book that sets the scene well for the third book in the series Entice where I think the tension that has been building in the past two books will come to a head.

 

Verdict: Captivate picks up very well from Need and delivers with changes that put the future of the plot in doubt. It lacks some of the more creepy scenes in Need but for me this was made up with the emotional turmoil that the characters face. Unlike other fans in the series, I can now read the third book in the series, Entice almost straight away!