Book Review: How Not to Make a Wish

How Not to Make a Wish by Mindy Klasky

Released: October 1, 2009

Publisher: Mira
Pages: 336
Rating: 2 stars

Kira Franklin loves the theater. The theater is her life.

But stage manager Kira's down-at-the-heels dinner theater is failing fast; she's about to find herself out of a job. While cleaning out a prop closet, Kira discovers a dusty brass lamp. When she polishes it, she's astonished to discover a genie, bound to grant her wishes.

The first wish is easy: Kira arranges to stage manage a production of Romeo and Juliet at the prestigious Landmark Stage, where the hunky Drew Myers plays a leading role. She soon discovers, though, that wishes and genies (not to mention true love) aren't always what they seem!

A year later, Kira Franklin – still recovering from a break up, jobless and an extra thirty pounds heavier – is in desperate need of a miracle. One day, she gets that miracle in the shape of a genie. Now her troubles are over…or so she thinks. Her wishes end up making her life anything but easier. Every wish seems to just turn into a huge fiasco – like when she wished away her extra thirty pounds, her family and friends began to think she was anorexic.

How Not to Make a Wish sounded interesting when I read the back of the book, but I’m disappointed to say it was anything but. It was ridiculously predictable, and the plot really fell flat. I had a hard time trying to actually finish the entire book. The characters lacked depth and were too whiny for my liking. I also felt like the genie, Teel, was just thrown in to mix things up a bit because not really anything was revealed about his character. He just popped in every now and again to help move the story along.

How Not to Make a Wish was not a book for me and I think it’s safe to say I won’t be reading the rest of this series.

Book Review: After the Moment

After the Moment by Garret Freymann-Weyr

Released: May 18, 2009

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Pages: 328

Rating: 2 stars

Maia Morland is pretty, only not pretty-pretty. She's smart. She's brave. She's also a self-proclaimed train wreck.

Leigh Hunter is smart, popular, and extremely polite. He's also completely and forever in love with Maia Morland.

Their young love starts off like a romance novel—full of hope, strength, and passion. But life is not a romance novel and theirs will never become a true romance. For when Maia needs him the most, Leigh betrays both her trust and her love.

After the Moment was an okay read. From the beginning, I was confused and it didn’t really get any better. It starts off with Maia and Leigh meeting at a party when they are 21. Then Leigh tells the story, or maybe just remembers it, of what happen to the two of them when they were 17. Every now and again, it would flash back to the present without any breaks. That is where I got the most confused because it was hard to follow where the story went.

For me, this was a slow read. There was so much going on and not any details to explain certain things, so I still have a ton of unanswered questions. There were plenty of details for parts that didn’t pertain to the story at all though. Once the story started to get interesting, which wasn’t until page 200, I was kept wanting to know what happened.

I did enjoy the characters. They were realistic and were trying to deal with issues that people in the real world deal with everyday – divorced parents, friendship, love, school, death etc. This is a different take on love, one that shows first love doesn’t always work out. With all the extra stuff going on, I think it would have been better if the book was a bit longer.