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What: How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake

Who: HMH Books for Young Readers

When: May 2nd 2017

How: A copy of this novel was provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for review via Edelweiss.

All seventeen year-old Grace Glasser wants is her own life. A normal life in which she sleeps in the same bed for longer than three months and doesn’t have to scrounge for spare change to make sure the electric bill is paid. Emotionally trapped by her unreliable mother, Maggie, and the tiny cape on which she lives, she focuses on her best friend, her upcoming audition for a top music school in New York, and surviving Maggie’s latest boyfriend—who happens to be Grace’s own ex-boyfriend’s father.

Her attempts to lay low until she graduates are disrupted when she meets Eva, a girl with her own share of ghosts she’s trying to outrun. Grief-stricken and lonely, Eva pulls Grace into midnight adventures and feelings Grace never planned on. When Eva tells Grace she likes girls, both of their worlds open up. But, united by loss, Eva also shares a connection with Maggie. As Grace’s mother spirals downward, both girls must figure out how to love and how to move on.

I wanted to love this book, I really did. I had heard so many wonderful things about it from reviewers and readers that I trust. But, sadly, this book just wasn’t for me. I had a few thoughts when reading How to Make a Wish, and here they are:

1) I hated Maggie, Grace’s mum. She was a horrible, emotionally abusive, woman-child of a parent. Throughout How to Make a Wish she did approximately one nice thing for her daughter, and the rest of the time she was pulling truly terrible shit.

And I think the worst part is that no one did anything about it. Grace didn’t do anything about it, Eva and Luca didn’t do anything about it, Luca’s mum didn’t do anything about it. They all just let her get away with every awful thing that she did.

I think human beings have thresholds. And I think that threshold maintains itself for a long time because people can make excuses for the ones they love, and hold the nice things that they do for them close to their heart to make up for the bad things. But we all still have a threshold. Grace didn’t seem to have a threshold at all, which didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Like I said before, her mother did one nice thing for Grace in the whole book, so it’s not like Grace could tell herself that Maggie was doing nice things, as well. There was literally nothing for her to make believe that made up for all the horrible shit that Maggie pulled. She just kept forgiving her, and kept making excuses.

And I kind of get that this might have been the way things played out because the big climax of the book is about Grace learning that she needs to do things for herself rather than Maggie but this came at around 95%. That was too late. It was too late because I’d read 95% of a book where Grace was making excuses and forgiving her mum and then suddenly with five percent left she makes a change. It was too late because it happened so fast, and a little too perfect-timing-ly.

2) Grace wasn’t a very developed character. She’s supposed to be this amazing pianist, and piano playing is supposed to be this incredibly important thing to her. And the first time she plays is halfway through the novel. And then there’s maybe three other scenes where she’s playing. To be entirely honest, I felt like piano was this thing that was supposed to matter to Grace to make her a more three dimensional character but it didn’t really work out.

Apart from that, she doesn’t have any other passions. There was nothing about the music she likes, the books, the TV shows, the movies, the clothes, the hobbies. There was just the piano. And even then that piano aspect wasn’t exactly fleshed out.

3) I both liked and disliked the ship. Grace makes it very clear to Eva early on that Eva hanging out with Maggie makes her upset and angry and hurt. She doesn’t say it though words, but after every time she sees Eva and Maggie hanging out she’s upset and angry and hurt.

I thought it was super naïve and kind of bullshit that Eva didn’t notice this. And that Grace let it happen in the first place. I understand why she cared later on, but when she’d known Eva for like five minutes and was caring so much about her healing that she was willing to put that above the hurt she was feeling because of the way Maggie was treating her? That felt a little too farfetched. You don’t hold some new girl’s feelings in such high regard.

And then Eva pulled the most dreaded “my mum is dead and yours alive so you don’t get to complain” card. Which I despise. Maggie is hardly a mother at all, and has spent Grace’s entire life emotionally abusing her, moving her from place to place, putting her in dangerous situations. Comparing that to a loving mother who had a stable job and home, and who supported Eva’s dreams and ambitions is just outright bullshit.

Though, there were some positives about their relationship, as well. I liked how Eva didn’t pull crap because she’s gay and Grace is bi. I liked how they were a interracial couple (Grace is white and Eva is black). I liked how they supported each other (most of the time). I liked how Eva wasn’t afraid to be honest. I liked how it moved from a kind of instant connection to more of a slow burn relationship. I liked how they were intimate, both emotionally and physically.

4) The secondary characters were kind of filler.

Luca, Grace’s best friend, practically disappears for half the novel after they have a fight. And during that time Grace spends all her moments with Eva. And then they kind of just make up without any conversation about why they weren’t talking to begin with, which just made the whole thing feel like a plot device for Grace to spend more time with Eva without having to make time for her best friend, as well.

Jay, the ex-boyfriend who Grace now lives with, is supposed to be this horrible person. He posted sexts between him and Grace on Tumblr after she broke up with him. But then he actually legitimately cares about Grace, and wants her to be okay, and drives a really long way to come and pick her up when she has no one else. I feel like his character was so contradictory. Because you wouldn’t ever forgive someone who bullied you like that. But Grace kind of does because of the way he is when she lives with him. It’s just hard to reconcile these two things, really.

Emmy, Luca’s mom, was supposed to be this second mother figure to Grace but we hardly ever see their relationship in action. And I don’t really have much respect for a grown woman who would let a teenager be in Grace’s situation without doing anything except make half-hearted offers of different living arrangements and give them twenty dollars every now and then.

~

So, these were my thoughts. I’m not lying when I say I wanted to love How to Make a Wish. But these aspects really got to me, and I just couldn’t fall in love with it.

© 2017, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.

trigger warnings: use of ableist language, online bullying, father killed in action, reference to death of a parent via operation complication (infection), absent father, emotional abuse, homophobia, alcoholic parent, non-fatal car crash (drink driving), reference to romantic cheating, reference to suicide, and stealing (parent steals child’s money) in this novel

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Posted on: May 12, 2017 • By: Chiara

16 Responses to Four Thoughts on How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake

  1. I’M SO SADDDDD. These are all very legitimate things to dislike about it, so I’m a bit more cautious now. But I’ve heard such amazing reviews. Very intrigued as to what I’ll think. Lovely review <3 <3

  2. Agh this sounds like a bit of a sadly disappointing mess. ? I’m sorry it let you down! I had it on my TBR but the relationships all reeeally are turning me off at this point. And contradictory characters are so confusing! AGH.

  3. Sorry to hear this was disappointing! I was quite excited for this too and I’d heard such great things but after reading this review I may have to rethink my position on wanting to read it! Thanks for the review though Chiara!

    • Chiara says:

      I had heard so many amazing things, too! Which I think made it all the more disappointing when I realised I wasn’t going to love it :( No problem at all, Anisha <3

  4. Aww, so sad to hear that this book didn’t live up to your expectations! When I read the blurb, it sounded like such a wonderful exploration of family, friendship, loss and one’s sexuality. Sadly, it sounds like the execution was just a little off :( Thanks for the honest review, hope your next read is much better! x

    • Chiara says:

      I was sad too, Joy! The blurb does sound like it would be a lovely and profound novel but it just hit the mark on too many things for me :( No problem, and thank you! <3

  5. verushka says:

    Oh dear, sounds like the pacing might’ve sucked on this one. I liked what the blurb promised though.

  6. Jackie B says:

    Well, it’s books like this which help you align what you enjoy that don’t. If we didn’t have duds we wouldn’t be able to know what good looks like. It always makes me sad when books miss on character development. Thanks for writing a thoughtful review. Well done!

    • Chiara says:

      That’s true! Although it’s a shame this one turned out to be one I didn’t enjoy because I had been looking forward to it quite a bit. Character development is super important to me so when I feel like it’s missing it has a big impact. Thanks, Jackie!

  7. Megan says:

    Oh no, I’m so sad you didn’t like this one. This was a really great review!
    Megan @ http://wanderingsofabookbird.blogspot.co.uk/

  8. Hm, this could just be me, but I’m getting the vibe from reading the blurb that this book seems to have a lot going on with too few pages to really connect everything & flesh out all of the concepts it tries to explore? I mean, you mentioned six characters in this review alone (unless I’m missing one — Grace, Maggie, Eva, Emmy, Luca, Jay, I believe?), which already feels like far too many to try & keep track of, let alone all of their personalities/plot importance/places in the story. On top of the already questionable things you mentioned in your review, I’m not getting a great feeling about it. I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy this one, love, but thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us. xo

    • Chiara says:

      Now that you mention it, I think that may have been of the several downfalls of this novel. It tried too hard to include too many Important Life Issues and never really managed to fully flesh out or explore any of them. There were a lot of characters and character relationships to grasp in this book, and all of them were very varies, as well. I’m sorry I didn’t love it, too! Especially since I seem to be the only one who didn’t :/ As always, it was my pleasure <3

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