A Need So Beautiful

Title: A Need So Beautiful

Author: Suzanne Young

Genre: YA/Paranormal

Release Date: June 21, 2011

My Rating:

♥♥♥♥♡

A Need So Beautiful is about a girl named Charlotte.  All her life she has had spontaneous and painful episodes that draw her to help someone in need or to speak wise words to those doing wrong, which she calls The Need.  But if it were up to Charlotte, she would be living as a normal teenage girl, hanging out with her eccentric best friend and spending time with her wonderful boyfriend.  The Needs become harder and harder to resist as she realizes that her days on earth are numbered.  A strange woman named Onika starts making appearances in Charlotte's life, telling her that she can stay on earth and live out her life happily, but there's a catch: Charlotte would become a Shadow, tempting humans in the worst way.  Will Charlotte leave everything she loves because it's her destiny or will she write her own future?

My Review:

A Need So Beautiful is very, very sad (just a heads up).  I was left in tears while Charlotte was giving in to The Need and especially toward the end of her time on earth.

Charlotte's boyfriend, Harlin, is amazingly sweet, but he serves as such a distraction from her real purpose on earth and he made it so hard for her to make the biggest decision of her life.  Charlotte was also a tiny bit petty at times, so that annoyed me a bit.  Harlin and Charlotte's relationship came off a bit superficial at times, which bothered me because I want the character's relationships and interactions to feel real and substantial.

This book incorporates many problems of our society with an angelical conundrum.  I loved Young's writing; it was engaging, beautiful, sorrowful, joyful, and entrancing.  

The plot-line is so unique and intriguing.  It seems like there are so many angel-esque books out on the shelves (Hush, Hush, Fallen, A Temptation of Angels, Angel Burn), but none of their plots even come close to A Need So Beautiful.  

I'm giving A Need So Beautiful a 4.5/5 because I loved the mix of emotions I felt while reading it, but it was very short and ended with a cliffhanger.