Title: You Wish
Author: Many Hubbard [Website] [Twitter]  [Facebook]
Genre: Young Adult, Middle-Grade, Contemporary
Publisher: Razorbill
Format: Paperback
Source: Provided by Publisher
Parental Advisory: none

“I take the stairs two by two, tripping over the last one and landing hard on my knees.  I scramble to my feet and then make it down the hall and ling my door open.  I head straight into my closet.  I want to find everything from my childhood.  Every stupid, cursed thing and destroy it, before it comes to life too.  I stand on my tippy toes to find the boxes that have been occupying one corner of my closet for years.”

Summary (from the publisher):
Kayla McHenry is having the worst sweet sixteenth!  Just before she blows out her candles, she thinks: I wish all my birthday wishes actually came true.

The next day, Kayla wakes up to a life-sized, bright pink My Little Pony outside her window.  Then, a year’s supply of gumballs arrives.  An oddly plastic-looking boy named Ken shows up in a convertible and starts following her around!  Each day, another childhood wish comes true.  But they MUST STOP.

Because when she was fifteen?  She wished Ben Mackenzie would kiss her.  And Ben is her best friend’s boyfriend.

Opinion:
I really enjoyed this book.  It was a super duper fast read (I finished it in just about two hours which is pretty much unheard of for me) filled with the cutest scenarios.  A fabulous read for tweens and teens this book spans ages all the way up to adults longing to relive some of their fondest childhood memories.

Now, let me tell you, most of the plot of the book is given away in the jacket flap.  There isn’t a whole lot to the plot outside of the wish scenario and there isn’t super in depth character development and analysis.  But you know what?  It doesn’t need it.  It works perfectly just the way it is.

You Wish is seriously just a nice dose of good old fashioned fun.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a fair share of angst — Kayla’s got some pretty heavy family issues and her life-long best friend is starting to move in a different direction socially.  How these are dealt with is where the power of the story resides.  How Kayla works through these issues are focused on through this unique idea where Kayla is suddenly granted all of her birthday wishes.  Every day something new happens — a real life My Little Pony wagging it’s blue and pink tail in the yard, a room full of gumballs, a real life Ken doll to date, and worst of all great big giant knockers that grow from A to D cup over night!  All of these different childhood hopes and dreams just magically appear to her and start wreaking havoc and changing the direction of her life.

Tremendously witty and filled with humor and fun You Wish also has the requisite cute boy crush going on.  Of course said cute boy is the aforementioned distance creating best friend’s boyfriend.  This could be a problem but the way Hubbard has handled it is respectful and mature.  I appreciated that Kayla had respect for her friend’s feelings.  She wasn’t some scheming trampy girl manipulating Ben away at the expense of her relationship with Nicole.  She genuinely wanted to maintain her friendship at all costs.  Watching her struggle with her own desire in an attempt to maintain that proprietary was an excellent part of the story.  One that I think could teach teen girls a thing or two.

This is the perfect book to escape with, it’s not heavy lifting but it’s not without depth.  It’s got a wonderfully quirky and interesting main character and a fun concept.  The best part, by far, was trying to guess what each new day would bring with it.  What wish would be granted and how would it affect Kayla’s life.  It was so much fun and written in a way that a person could actually believe it was happening.  Was it a joke?  Was it a dream?  Was it really happening?  Well you’ll have to read it to find out!