Charbonneau, Joelle. NEED.

Charbonneau, Joelle.  NEED.   Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt Brace     2015  338p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-544-41669-7  jr/sr      Realistic fiction  E-BN

Is there a difference between a wish and a need?  The high-school students in Nottawa, Wisconsin, join the newest, hottest networking site to try to get something for nothing.  Kaylee Dunham has a definite need.  She needs a kidney for her brother.  Her friend, Nate Weakley, had her join the site to find a match for her brother’s kidney.  Kaylee has to depend on Nate because her classmates don’t like her, her mother doesn’t trust her, and she is desperate to get a kidney for her brother.  However, she soon comes to realize that someone knew the students’ secrets and could make her classmates act in outrageous ways.  People are getting hurt, buildings are burning, and Nate is kidnapped.  Kaylee feels it is up to her to find the person or persons behind the site.

This book will provide an insight into the dark side of the social media upsurge.  It will also engage readers as Kaylee fights to win her mother’s trust and to answer the question of what or who is behind the website that is causing her classmates to become killers.

Summary: Is there a difference between a wish and a need?  The high-school students in Nottawa, Wisconsin, join the newest, hottest networking site to try to get something for nothing.  The site demands a task for a request.  The tasks escalate and Kaylee needs answers.  

Social media-Fiction                                        --Linda McNeil

Charbonneau, Joelle. NEED.

Charbonneau, Joelle.  NEED.  Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt Brace      2015  338p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-544-41669-7      ms/hs  Mystery/Detective  E-BN

NEED is a race from start to finish, told from varying points of view by students who are trying to get what they need but always coming back to Kaylee.  Kaylee has been hounding people to get tested to see if they are a match to donate a kidney to her brother, since she and her mother are not and her father has disappeared.  She has even snuck a look at people’s medical records, which resulted in her being sent to see the school therapist.  When her best and only friend Nate invites her to join the website NEED, she decides that she needs a kidney for D.J., while her classmates are asking for phones and concert tickets.  When Kaylee catches someone digging a grave for her brother in their front yard and a fellow student ends up dead, Kaylee starts putting clues together and thinks NEED is to blame.  She has to convince people that she is not trying to get attention and is not crying wolf, but she finds there are fewer people she can really trust than ever before.  This is a scary look at what social networking can become, and the fast pace will have even reluctant readers with their noses glued to their books.  

Summary: What do you NEED? What is the difference between a want and a need?  Kaylee’s best friend Nate invites her to be a part of a social networking site that will allow users to ask for what they need in exchange for performing a task.  Kaylee only needs one thing, a kidney for her brother. Things get out of control with the NEED website and people start dying. Kaylee has been a fanatic about finding her brother a kidney, so much that people think she needs serious help.  Will people believe her when she tries to convince them of what NEED is doing?
     

Social Networking--Fiction, Mystery--Fiction                --Erin Daley