Review : You Wish

Posted by kay on August 14, 2010 11:00 am in 3.5 stars reads | 4 comments

You Wish by Mandy Hubbard
Pages : 284
Genre : YA, Fiction
Stand Alone
My Rating :

What it’s about, in my words :

Kayla’s birthday wishes never come true – until they do.

In the midst of her sweet sixteen anniversary – a party she would have preferred not to attend – Kayla blows the candles on her cake and wishes all of her birthday wishes would finally come true. But when all those wishes from the past come to life – a giant pony, a year supply of gumballs, the sudden ability to speak Italian perfectly, etc. – Kayla begins to reconsider her recent wish, because the worst is about to happen. The year before, Kayla wished her crush Ben would kiss her, but Ben his now her best friend’s boyfriend.

Can Kayla stop the madness before her life gets ruined?

I read the author’s first novel, Prada and Prejudice, last year as it just came out and was charmed by the magic and the cuteness of it. Having heard of You Wish on the author’s blog, I was expecting it to give me a similar feel, and I’m happy to report that it did!

Having been sick for two weeks now, I really needed some fun, vibrant, light read and You Wish was exactly what I needed to pick my spirits up from the couch and forget for a moment that I wasn’t feeling well. If only for that, the book deserves a good round of applause!

As a main character, Kayla felt a bit immature and annoying at times. Well, I guess I would be too if I was 16 and woke up in a room filled with gumballs! But she sometimes said things that made me roll my eyes a little. On the bright side, her story is the push she needed to make a reflexion on her life and change. In the events that follow her birthday wish, she is forced to take a good look at who she is and how she treats her family and her best friend. She matures a lot, which is good, but it started to happen a little late in the book.

Another thing that might displease some readers, I guess, is the lack of a detailed explanation for what happens. As in Hubbard’s previous novel, magic happens and when things resolve themselves, we don’t really have an answer for why or how it happened. I don’t really mind it though, because the book isn’t about a magical world building. The best example I can give is the movie Freaky Friday : it’s colorful and fun, but when things are resolved, what’s matters is the changes it brought to the characters’ life, not the mechanics behind the magic.

If you’re looking for a bubbly, humorous and fun read, You Wish might be just what you are looking for! Her next book, Ripple, comes out in August 2011, and I am already looking forward to it.