As You Wish

by J Pearce

[Leah]

When Viola splits up with her boyfriend Lawrence, due to the fact he's gay, she finds her world crumbling beneath her and begins to think that she's nothing more than an invisible girl. She wishes so hard to be able to fit in at school again that she inadvertently summons a jinn who will grant her three wishes before disappearing from her life forever. Viola has no idea what to wish for and with Jinn anxious to get home, things become a little tense. But once Viola makes her first wish - to "belong" - she suddenly realises that when the time comes to make her second and third wishes, she might not be able to do it after all because she knows that when she does, Jinn will disappear and that's the last thing she wants when she realises she could be falling in love with him.

Earlier this year I got the chance to read Sister's Red by Jackson Pearce and I devoured it in two sittings, thoroughly enjoying a brand new take on the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale. So when I saw Jackson's debut novel As You Wish was being released in paperback, I pre-ordered it immediately hoping for just as good a story as Sister's Red. When it arrived I quickly finished up the previous book I was reading and got stuck in.

While most Young Adult novels are currently populated with vampires, angels and werewolves, As You Wish features a jinn, a genie to you and me, who can grant three wishes for whomever their master is before disappearing from their lives forever. So after wishing she wasn't so invisible anymore, Viola finds herself having the chance to make three wishes of her very own. Things become complicated, though, when Viola finds herself becoming closer to Jinn and even falling in love with him a little bit. Things become more complicated when Viola wishes to 'belong' and ends up with more friends than she's ever had and a perfect boyfriend, leaving her wondering if belonging is really what she's after.

So As You Wish, coming in at a relatively short 298 pages, is indeed a bit of a light-weight read and I finished it in under three and a half hours. There's no real meatiness to the book, and although it is just as readable as Sister's Red (otherwise it would have taken me longer to finish), it really wasn't as good a read. If I had read this before Sister's Red, I would have loved it but it just doesn't compare having already read Sister's Red. It does have one lasting message, though, in that just because you wish to belong doesn't necessarily mean it will fix any problems you have. It's a good message to get across, particularly with those who feel invisible sometimes (and don't we all feel that at some point?).

Viola was an easy enough character to like, which is always good since she co-narrates the book along with Jinn, and I'm sure a lot of teenagers will relate to her, because everyone knows what it's like to be heartbroken and to feel invisible to the world. As for Jinn, he was just so lovely. He's hesitant at first about being on Earth; after all, he ages on Earth whereas he doesn't when in Caliban (where the jinn's live) but he soon falls in love with the way things happen on Earth (and with Viola), and enjoys looking at the stars and seeing the rain. The only other character worthy of mention was Lawrence because despite the fact he broke Viola's heart by coming out to her, he and Viola stayed best friends and he was a fantastic friend despite everything that had happened between them.

As You Wish, as I said, was a fairly easy read and I loved that it was told from both Viola and Jinn's points of view as we got to see how they fall in love with each other from both perspectives. Their relationship doesn't start out the best but you can seem them softening towards each other fairly rapidly. The whole book, or at least the majority of it, is told over a manner of days, which is a surprisingly short amount of time, but it seems like so much longer. And although the book was such an easy read, I did enjoy entering Viola and Jinn's world and there could be definite potential for a sequel. I for one would pick it up as Pearce's storytelling abilities are faultless. So despite not being as good as Sister's Red (I would read this one first then Sister's Red), it was still an entertaining story nevertheless and one I would definitely recommend.