Captivate

Captivate picks up right after Need left off: princess and half pixie Zara and her friends have imprisoned her pixie king father and his followers in a house surrounded by iron. They continue to put pixies they find in with them because they don't want to kill them, but can't let them free. These pixies aren't like Tinkerbell where they just flit around and look cute: they delight in torturing and bleeding human boys. Now a new pixie king named Astley is trying to usurp her father's throne and take over. He insists he isn't like the other pixies and will make everything better. However, there are other pixies in the race as well that may be worse than Astley. Zara knows never to trust a pixie, but she can't help but believe some of the things he says. Should she trust him or trust Nick, her loyal werewolf boyfriend? Will her decision come too late to matter?

Zara and her loyal band of friends are back. As in the first book, I like Zara and feel she's a strong female figure. She does make some really stupid decision I wanted to shake her for that kind of pushed it into Bella during New Moon territory. This novel addressed what I expected at the end of the first: Zara's conflict of practicality and personal morals. She and her friends locked up the pixies in a house, which was practical to stop the pixie attacks, but completely against her personal morals. Forcing them to live trapped in that house is akin to torture and she has trouble living with that, resulting in looking for other ways to deal with the problem. I also really like Issie. She's so sweet and kindhearted. She's a really good friend to Zara, even if Zara seems kind of insensitive to problems that aren't her own. Devyn kind of annoyed me with his weird attitude and blockheaded-ness. Of the new characters, I like Astley. He's the perfect mix of good, mysterious, and danger. He was the most compelling character of the novel. He revealed much more about different kinds of pixies than anyone ever before. I had to resist singing Never Gonna Give You Up by the incomparable Rick Astley in my head when I finally found out his name. Aside from the silly name, I look forward to more him in the next book in the series.

Every chapter starts with tips in dealing with pixies. I don't think they are as good at foreshadowing events in the coming chapter or, frankly, as interesting as the phobias in the first book. The narrative isn't as compelling to me in this novel because her descriptions of the setting weren't as present as in the first. I felt that Need is the better and more engaging book, but Captivate is a good book as well. Carrie Jones gets major, major kudos for two things: having the characters create a pixie survival guide inspired by Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide and Issie's mentions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am huge fans of both so my inner nerd leaped for joy. Even though the book is flawed, I really enjoyed it and happily wait for the next in the series.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

*** My review of the first book, Need, can be found here. ***