Initial Impressions 10/30/15: 2.5 stars 
 MEH. This book was very MEH. It was quite over the top so it didn't feel like a real and true thriller. I just felt like everything was exaggerated to the point where it was unbelievable. The kids in this book were just AWFUL. Like, every single one of them. I don't know if that's supposed to point a finger at today's society or if they had to be truly awful for the point of the story but either way, I was very put off by the selfishness and lack of morals in all of these high school kids. Some were a bit more noble but those were the first ones to suffer. A surprising amount of kids felt no remorse for their actions and who they hurt. It was just very off-putting. 
 The plot didn't really feel believable, even when the conclusion came around. I suppose things tied together and it made me feel a bit better in spots but overall, I just wasn't buying it. I just wished for a lot more REAL feelings and situations in this book because the more real it feels, the more it scares the pants off me! 
 The characters really didn't have a lot of depth either. Switching POVs didn't really help that and instead it made me feel even more disconnected from each one. I really didn't even like the main characters and they kind of bothered me from the start. 
 This one just didn't work for me. The thriller aspect kept me reading and it was a pretty quick read so I did finish it but I really wasn't too stoked on it. After my feelings really waned towards The Testing trilogy (I DNFed the third book because I also didn't care about the characters or like them at that point), I don't think I'll be picking up more from Joelle Charbonneau which is a total shame because she's a local author and I've seen her a few times at events! Oh well. 
 Full review as originally posted HERE on The Book Addict's Guide 12/22/15: My experience with Joelle Charbonneau's Testing Trilogy was a bit of rocky ride but nonetheless, I was super intrigued by NEED! I always love a good mystery and/or thriller and that seems to be a genre that's gaining popularity in the past year or so in YA and looks like it will continue to grow in the years to come! I was anxious to read NEED in the hopes that it would be a book that totally turned my world upside down! 
 NEED started out with an interesting concept: a social media network for a small-town Wisconsin high school. It's invite-only and students who wish to join have to invite a certain number of people (and later on, perform a certain tasks) in order for their NEED to be approved. I felt like this concept was incredibly intriguing and really could have gone so many different ways to totally hook me. Like The Testing Trilogy though, the execution just started to feel melodramatic, over-done, and really just not realistic. 
 The characters in this book were just awful people. Pretty much every student at this high school seemed willing to do some pretty deplorable things in order to get what they wanted (let's be honest -- they weren't really needs), and it was pretty disgusting how easily they were able to talk themselves into thinking that what they were doing wasn't really wrong. By the end of the book, even the main characters were starting to lose some serious moral guidance and it was just so hard for me to like anyone in the book because of that. I've read plenty of books where bad things have happened to characters, they've sought revenge, they've had to protect themselves or possibly use violence against another person, but usually that's in the heat of battle or in self-defense. NEED just felt like a group of selfish brats who were willing to use people to get what they wanted and felt that they were entitled to do so and I think that was really the scariest thing about the book. 
 None of the characters seemed to have a lot of depth, either. I was already disconnected from them considering I was seriously questioning their actions but I didn't really see that internal struggle or a moral battle to figure out if what they were asking for was really worth what they were doing. There were a lot of POV switches -- both switching from character to character and switching actual points of view from first to third when switching -- and I'm sure that didn't help me get a grip on the characters either. Instead of showing me a new point of view, I felt like it took focus away from the main characters by spending a short amount of time with a secondary or even tertiary character that didn't offer much in the way of personality or plot anyway. 
 I was hoping the ending would really bring things back around and leave me feeling a bit better about the book overall but sadly, I didn't really enjoy the way it was handled. I had a hunch on how it might end and I was both right and wrong at the same time but in the opposite ways that I had hoped. There was a solid explanation of who was behind NEED and why it was created and yet I didn't find it satisfying. Again, it felt like a far-fetched idea and didn't really make any sense to me. 
 I was super bummed out that I didn't enjoy NEED because I love supporting local authors and I've met Joelle Charbonneau a few times and she's just so sweet! It's sad to say that I think I just don't click with her writing. It seems like too many things that add shock value are there just for shock value and there isn't a real concrete explanation why they happen. I was hoping this would be the turning point for me with her writing but unless a future book gets rave reviews, I just don't think I'll be picking up another one of her books any time soon.