Review: Need

Need by Joelle Charbonneau
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

One by one, the teens in Nottawa, Wisconsin, join the newest, hottest networking site and answer one question: What do you need? A new iPhone? Backstage passes to a concert? In exchange for a seemingly minor task, the NEED site will fulfill your request. Everyone is doing it. So why shouldn’t you?

Kaylee Dunham knows what she needs—a kidney for her sick brother. She doesn’t believe a social networking site can help, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

Or could it?

After making her request, Kaylee starts to realize the price that will have to be paid for her need to be met. The demands the site makes on users in exchange for their desires are escalating, and so is the body count. Will Kaylee be able to unravel the mystery of who created the NEED network before it destroys them all?

Sometimes, there is such a thing as too many narrators. I give you the Table of Contents of this book.

The words “chilling” and “thriller” is used in the blurb to sell this book. They’re misleading. This book was silly.

If anything, this book only serves to highlight how stupid teenagers are. In life, nothing comes without a price. Books like The Monkey’s Paw demonstrates it perfectly well. Things that sound too good to be true probably are. Which is why it’s just seriously stupid and this book makes its teenagers look even dumber by having them fall so perfectly into the trap. A website that promises to fulfil your wishes. Too good to be true? Sure it is. Do the teenagers in this book fall for it? Sure they do. Real-life teenagers are a little smarter than that.

“No one gets something for nothing. We all should know better.”

Yeah, they should. Give teenagers some credit. Give them some skepticism.

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE BEEN INVITED TO NEED—THE NEWEST, INVITATION-ONLY SOCIAL MEDIA SITE FOR NOTTAWA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. JOIN YOUR FRIENDS IN DISCOVERING HOW MUCH BETTER LIFE CAN BE WHEN YOU ARE PRESENTED WITH AN ANONYMOUS WAY TO EXPRESS YOUR THOUGHTS AND ARE GIVEN THE TOOLS TO GET THE THINGS YOU NEED.

That doesn’t look suspicious at all!

So our main character has a brother who’s sick and/or dying. Her wish:

I NEED A KIDNEY FOR MY BROTHER.

Well, how sweet of her. But let’s think this through.

If it were me, here would be my thought process. I need a donor kidney. A kidney comes from a human. A human has to be cut open to get a kidney. Consent is highly recommended.

If it were me, I’d type in “I NEED A KIDNEY FROM A CONSENTING AND WILLING ADULT DONOR WHO MATCHES MY BROTHER AND WHO WISHES TO HELP” instead of “I NEED A KIDNEY.”

But that’s just me.

And that’s how it goes. Wishes are typed in blithefully free of the inconvenience of a deeper thought process. Of course shit is going to fly.