Review: A Need So Beautiful by Suzanne Young

A Need So Beautiful by Suzanne Young
Release Date: June 1, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 267 pages
Publisher: Balzer & Bray
Series: A Need So Beautiful #1
Source: Library

Description from Goodreads:
We all want to be remembered. Charlotte's destiny is to be Forgotten...

Charlotte’s best friend thinks Charlotte might be psychic. Her boyfriend thinks she’s cheating on him. But Charlotte knows what’s really wrong: She is one of the Forgotten, a kind of angel on earth, who feels the Need—a powerful, uncontrollable draw to help someone, usually a stranger.

But Charlotte never wanted this responsibility. What she wants is to help her best friend, whose life is spiraling out of control. She wants to lie in her boyfriend's arms forever. But as the Need grows stronger, it begins to take a dangerous toll on Charlotte. And who she was, is, and will become--her mark on this earth, her very existence--is in jeopardy of disappearing completely.

Charlotte will be forced to choose: Should she embrace her fate as a Forgotten, a fate that promises to rip her from the lives of those she loves forever? Or is she willing to fight against her destiny--no matter how dark the consequences.

A Need So Beautiful is one of those books I'd been looking at for a while, then decided to just grab it off the library shelf one day. I do this a lot, I know. Usually with these kinds of books--the ones I resist reading for a while for no real good reason--I end up kicking myself and wishing I had read the book sooner. And the same goes for A Need So Beautiful.

This book was beautiful. Just reading it broke my heart a little bit. Suzanne did a wonderful job of making the reader FEEL throughout this book. I felt Charlotte's desperation and confusion, and even a little of her love for Harlin, that sweet boy. Charlotte's thoughts and emotions were definitely portrayed in a way that the reader could comprehend them, and use them to understand the story better.

As far as the actual happenings of this book go, though, that wasn't AS great as it could have been. While the beginning of the book was mesmerizing, the middle slacked a bit in holding my attention. I got to the point that I get to in some books where I'm just waiting for a certain character to come back and amuse me again. In this case it was Alex and Harlin. The story was exremely interesting, but it didn't enthrall me as much as I'd hoped it would in the middle chunk.


Now that I've gotten all the criticism out of the way, I want to explain how much I liked this book. This was such a unique take on angels that was both precise and open to interpretation. This isn't a run-of-the-mill angel story, so I had a good time reading it, for the most part. Plus, this book did not drag. It moved right on along smoothlyin such a--as I mentioned at the beginning of this post--beautiful way.

Character Rundown:
Charlotte: Charlotte was not the most memorable female lead I've ever read about. She WAS a nice one, though. She played the nice-girl card well. She was also easy to identify with throughout the story. I completely understood her as I was reading from her eyes, which made the story that much better.
Harlin: He's sweet, so SO sweet, but he was also very boring. I love sweet boys--I mean, who DOESN'T?--but when they're so sweet, they're boring, that doesn't fly with me. He needs a personality, too. He needs to have something to live for that's NOT out MC. He can love her more than anything, but it's not fun when she's the ONLY thing. Where's the inner turmoil there?
Other Characters: I said already that Alex was a character I looked forward to. He's such a sweetie pie! And then Dr. Swift. He was boring to me, too. But with him, there wasn't any sweet words being said to make me happy. It was just information. Which is good to know, but not fun to read. It was kind of like info-dumping. Not cool.

The ending. The ending was not what I expected at all. Seriously, I did not expect this book to end the way it did. Needless to say: the sequel is most definitely needed as soon as I can manage to pay attention to it. As far as endings go, this one certainly was not too shabby.

Overall, this is certainly a book that should be given a chance. It has its faults, but it is also a stunningly unique and somewhat haunting novel.