Rating: 3.5/5 stars
(I reserve 4 and 5 stars for books that really struck me on a personal level or
stuck with me in some deep way. This book was lots of fun but not, for me,
super deep. I almost feel bad rating it only 3 stars, though, because it makes
my feelings sound lukewarm. I wholeheartedly recommend Rallison as good solid
fun, just not generally as particularly life-changing.)
Clean rating: G,
totally G. Rallison tends to be that way. Super squeaky clean, which is
something I love about her. I rarely have to worry that there’s anything
offensive in her works.
Short summary:
This is book 3 in a young adult series (but they are all stand-alone, just
united by the same really lousy fairy godmother). Sadie has a horrifically
embarrassing experience on a reality talent show, which earns her a pity fairy
godmother and three wishes. Chrissy, her godmother, interprets her wishes in a
predictably dreadful manner and sends Sadie to live in a fairy tale. It just
gets worse from there.
Recommend it? Are
you looking for something light and fluffy and fun? Also, can you tolerate
painful embarrassment—as in, situations so dreadfully embarrassing, you cringe
for the characters who are living through them? Do you think it would be fun
living in a famous fairy tale? (You’re wrong, by the way.) Then this is good
series for you to try.
Janette Rallison
novels in general: In fact, especially if you enjoy the painfully
embarrassing teenage scenes, I would recommend most of Janette Rallison’s
novels. My favorite was Fame, Glory, and
Other Things on My To-Do List, mostly because it had an absolutely
fantastic, completely ruined staging of West
Side Story. I would totally pay to see that performance. Just One Wish was also hilarious and one
of my other favorites, while touching on more serious stuff than most of the
others (the main character’s little brother has cancer). Mostly when I read
Rallison, I think, “Wow, I’m glad my teenage years were not that horrendous.” But
in a funny-painful way, not in a drama-angsty way.
What I liked: I
enjoy the utter absurdity of Chrissy’s interactions with her charges and also
how she interprets their wishes. I know I’ve already said the word “painful”
several times, but that’s how it feels—painful the way that lots of people love
America’s Funniest Home Videos (which
I actually can’t stand; I prefer fictional emotional embarrassment to real
physical pain). I also enjoy how Rallison addresses the inherent plot holes in
our famous fairy tales—which I like to do as well—but in a very humorous way.
What didn’t work for
me: I’m happy that Rallison has enough of a fan base that she makes money
now independently publishing a lot of her books, but in this case I think she
needed one more person to copyedit. There are just some minor things, and
mostly they’re not distracting (well, except for one spot which was clearly
marked as a sort of “to fix” item that didn’t get fixed). But to me they’re
distracting, even though minor. Otherwise, I’m sure I could nitpick, but
because it’s just a fun, fluffy novel, I’m not going to.
Last words: I
really hope I never get Chrysanthemum Everstar as a fairy godmother. And if I
do, I’m going to choose the wording of my wishes very, very carefully. I advise
you to do the same.
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