Book Review: Wish

Title: Wish

Author: Grier Cooper

Genre: YA Contemporary

Reviewer: Aly

Book Blurb: 

For Indigo Stevens, ballet classes at Miss Roberta’s ballet studio offer the stability and structure that are missing from her crazy home life. At almost 16, she hopes this is the year she will be accepted into the New York School of Ballet. First she must prove she’s ready, and that means ignoring Jesse Sanders – the cute boy with dimples who is definitely at the top of Miss Roberta’s List of Forbidden Things for Dancers.

But Jesse is the least of Indigo’s concerns. When she discovers her mom is an alcoholic, it simultaneously explains everything and heaps more worry on Indigo’s shoulders. As her mom’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic, Indigo fights to maintain balance, protect her younger brothers from abuse, and keep her mother from going over the edge. When the violence at home escalates, Indigo realizes she can no longer dance around the issue. At the risk of losing everything, she must take matters into her own hands before it’s too late.

Review:

The thing I really enjoyed about this book is the descriptions of emotions. It got the feelings across in a way that you could actually feel without having to get overly technical. Like when Indigo described the feelings she felt of flying I really could understand and feel that feeling. It didn’t need a large description to get that feeling across but it mentioned enough to get the feeling across and understand it.

The situation in Wish was really realistic and brought about in such a way that honestly you couldn’t believe that this was happening and you didn’t know how Indigo had made it this far without turning into someone terrible. But at the same time you found this pride because she found a way to deal with that situation and turn it into something different. Wish just brought about a mixture of emotions that drew you even deeper into the book and Indigo’s life.

Wish was a book that was set in a town much different than mine. And that was a good thing. I could imagine something different and yet still remain in the real world. I also couldn’t put it down and I pretty much read it in one sitting because I enjoyed it that much. 

I didn’t understand a lot of the ballet terms solely because I’m not a big fan of ballet but it wasn’t hard to read the book even not knowing what a plie was. That was perfect for me, because as I said I’m not so interested in ballet so ballet terms don’t really hold as much interest to me to know as other things would.

Wish dealt with some difficult subject matter and I feel that this was done well and fairly as well as being delicate about the subject without necessarily tiptoeing around the issue. If you understand that. It is a difficult topic to broach and yet it was handled well. 

Wish is one of those books that honestly you might as well just set aside a little while to read or else you’ll find yourself distracted while trying to do something else. Just as a warning.

Rating: