WISHING FOR YOU By Elizabeth Langston

This will be available for purchase on October 13, 2015,

you can Pre-order a copy now per the below link:

Amazon.com – Wishing For You by Elizabeth Langston

Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by the publisher, FictionETC Press, via NetGalley for an honest review.

Genre: Fiction/Young Adult

Plot: She’s a girl who can’t remember. He’s the guy she can’t forget…

It’s her final semester of high school, and Kimberley Rey is curious about what will come next. She needs to pick a college, but her memory disability complicates the choice. Will her struggles to remember make it impossible to leave home?

Help arrives through an unexpected and supernatural gift. Grant is a “genie” with rules. He can give her thirty wishes (one per day for a month) as long as the tasks are humanly possible. Kimberley knows just what to ask for–lessons in how to live on her own.

But her wishes change when a friend receives a devastating diagnosis. As she joins forces with Grant to help her friend, Kimberley learns that the ability to live in the moment–to forget–may be more valuable than she ever knew.

Opinion: It is not very often that I prefer the second book over the first in a series, but in this case, I most certainly do. The story-line is better, the reader is given a much more personal look into the characters, and the overall message is fantastic. I loved that the first book centered around Lacey and her wishes to help her family, and that the book centered on her friend Kimberly who used the wishes to help herself become more independent and to be able to work with her disability better.

After Kimberly receives an old pocket watch from her friend Lacey, with instructions to polish it, a genie suddenly appears promising her a wish for every day for the entire month. Immediately Kimberly realizes that the genie is Grant, Lacey’s now ex-boyfriend, and requests that her wishes be made to help her overcome the hardships that her memory disability has brought her. Soon Kimberly starts to learn how to do things that a regular teen might see as normal, but to her seem difficult and almost impossible. But soon Kimberly learns that her friend Sean is in terrible health, and works to not only make herself more independent, but to also stay strong for her friend.

Firstly, the opening line in the description for this book is a bit misleading. Sorry if this is a spoiler (it really isn’t) but the opening sentence insinuates that there might be something brewing between Kimberly and Grant in this book. There isn’t at all, so don’t get confused when you finish the book and nothing has happened between them.

The best part about this story was that it didn’t completely center on Kimberly and her wishes, which I will admit, got a little blasé after a while in book 1 with Lacey. The reader got better insight into how much Kimberly’s memory has affected her everyday life and her daily routines. She is constantly surrounded by lists and reminders for everything she must do in her day. But not only is she unlike normal teens, she also lacks the ability to do basic things such as cook meals, go on walks by herself, or drive a vehicle. As Grant and Kimberly start to work through her wishes, she starts to learn skills that can help her in both her everyday life as well as in her future. But soon Kimberly gets news from her friend Sean that he has cancer, and that he wishes to spend the rest of his time with Kimberly pretending that he isn’t dying. I completely commend the character of Kimberly for being able to put her sadness and worry over Sean aside, and to do as he asks. It gives both of these characters a really unique dynamic and puts the reader at a personal level with them. I feel like the author really dug in and gave me a fantastic insight into the main characters of this story, which was a much bigger improvement in comparison to book 1. The little time that Sean and Kimberly spent together was both sad and bittersweet, especially the relationship that Kimberly makes at the end of this book.

I am still trying to wrap my head around what happened between Grant and lacey in book 1. It all seemed very rushed and random, and I was actually expecting a reconciliation between them in this book. I have grown to dislike the character of Lacey because of her wishy-washiness, so I am glad that this book went into the life of another character instead of continuing with her.

Overall, a great follow-up to book 1 in this series, I Wish. This is a very sweet and charming YA series about growing up and believing in yourself, as well as the fun that comes with a magical being that grants you wishes.