One-Line Summary
A Black teen who can sense what people need is drawn into the disappearance of her friend — and discovers that sometimes the smallest gifts carry the heaviest consequences.
Opening Impression
Needy Little Things begins with the thrum of ordinary life — music festivals, social feeds, teenage bravado — before twisting that noise into dread. Channelle Desamours writes with rare immediacy: her narrator, Sariyah, feels real from the first page — bright, stubborn, and trying to stay afloat in a world that keeps taking from her. The voice is funny and fierce but shadowed by exhaustion. Desamours captures how it feels to be constantly needed, constantly unseen. There’s magic here, but it’s grounded in social truth: a speculative lens on the emotional labour young Black women are asked to perform.
Synopsis
Sariyah Lee Bryant, seventeen, has a secret she keeps from everyone except her family and best friend, Malcolm: she can “hear” what people need. Usually it’s harmless — a pencil, a charger, a snack. But when her friend Deja asks for pepper spray and disappears soon after, Sariyah’s gift turns to guilt. With police slow to act and the media indifferent, she and Malcolm take matters into their own hands, following digital traces and whispered rumours through a city that rarely listens to girls like them. As home pressures mount — a sick brother, a struggling mother, bills piling — Sariyah begins to monetise her power, and the line between helping and exploiting blurs. What unfolds is both mystery and moral reckoning: a story about listening, survival, and what it costs to meet everyone else’s needs when no one meets yours. (No spoilers.)
Analysis
Structure: Short chapters, crisp pacing, and alternating beats of tension and reflection keep this YA thriller tight. Desamours balances plot momentum with character depth — every twist lands with emotional logic.
Characterisation: Sariyah is unforgettable — funny, anxious, sometimes abrasive, always human. Malcolm and Deja bring dimension, not decoration, and the family dynamic grounds the supernatural hook in realism.
Style & Voice: The writing is fluid, contemporary, and precise. Dialogue snaps with rhythm; internal narration pulses with conflict. Desamours writes empathy without sentimentality.
Themes: Visibility, exploitation, justice, and the invisible weight of care. The gift of “hearing needs” becomes a metaphor for burnout — and for the societal deafness to missing Black girls.
Verdict
Inventive and heartfelt, Needy Little Things is both thriller and testimony. It asks hard questions but never loses sight of hope. Fans of Ace of Spades and Monday’s Not Coming will recognise its mix of tension and truth. A striking debut that listens closely — and makes sure we do too.
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