Just One Wish

by Janette Rallison

[nitzan_schwarz]

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I am very conflicted about this read.
First, I thought I wouldn't finish this book. The first half of the story drove me crazy, and I considered just stopping. But then the second half was quite good, so I thought I'd be giving this higher stars, but then--no, ending came and I both liked and hated it. Regretfully, in the end I could just really say "It was Ok". I know many people liked this but for me this was just... Well, see for yourselves:

I actually typed down my complaints as I read the first half, which went like this:

Huh? What the… I thought they said they didn't have much money, and yet they could buy a snake, rabbits and doves (not to mention their cages and stuff)? How much money in their language is "not much", exactly?! And what are they planning to do with those animals afterwards, exactly, go back to the seller and tell her "Hey, you know what? We changed our minds, you can have them back"?
Oh, wait, update – that's exactly what they planned on doing. One of the truly most unrealistic things I've ever read.
Moving on.
Okay—wait, WTF? Did she seriously leave the snake inside the wardrobe trailer?! What?! So, someone would find the snake, freak out and who knows what else? Is she stupid? Because I thought otherwise before, but now…
Update: Oh, and of course the snake was going to get out and wreck havoc. How she didn't see that one coming, I've no idea.
Huh. Just like that, she became an extra? And they jumped trailers? No one saw that? Seriously? No one found it odd the main character is leaping off roofs? And how come they never collided? How wide are those trailers, anyway?!

Things were a bit boring and much unrealistic, which made me be a bit… anti. I thought this was going to be a really cute read from the summery, but for the first half it just wasn't.
Then came the second half (with Steve) and things started happening. It started getting good—then it ended. Nothing felt closed;
What would be with Steve and his family?
What would be with Steve and Annika? (forget the fact the whole relationship-in-two-days and kissing-in-two-hours things, which annoyed me. You can develop an attraction to someone pretty quickly, but relationship? A bit too fast paced, for my taste)
What would happen with Jeremy? I could not believe they left it like that—the author is seriously killing a six-year-old?
I know this is meant to be somewhat of a realistic ending (which is preposterous, in my opinion, as most of the events in this story are quite farfetched), but while it was cute (the whole "I won't tell Robin's-girlfriend-what's-her-name" part) I couldn't believe that's where the author chose to end this. It was somewhat… bitter. I wanted more.