Book Review: "To Wish or Not to Wish" by Mindy Klasky

Summary from BN.com: Erin Hollister is waiting for her big break—or even a small one. She's been dumped by her boyfriend, canned by her employer and it doesn't seem that her dream of making it on Broadway will come true either. But then she's given a lantern—complete with genie!—and it looks as if a little magic may be in store….

That is, if she can decide what to wish for. There's the rub. Career? Family? Love life? Even a charismatic genie can grant only so many wishes. Or maybe Erin should just hold on to all those magical chances and think about what might be (instead of seeing just what's under her nose).

Time's running out. Ultimately, it's Erin who must decide how to keep the magic alive—forever.

This is one of those fun and unique series that is good for a light read. It's a situation that almost everyone wishes would happen to them: find a genie who grants you wishes. I love how the book takes place in New York and on Broadway because I enjoy seeing all the behind the scenes events. Erin's character is a bit annoying at first but I gradually began to like her. It is very obvious she cares about her sister and nephew and it gives her character more heart. I loved her relationship with Timothy because he was one of the nicest guys I have ever read in a story. His restaurant sounds amazing, the described food sounded delicious and the fact that he had a table set aside to feed a person in need for free just made me swoon. Do guys like him exist in real life?

I was a bit underwhelmed by this story as compared to the first two in the book. I guess since this was the last book in the series, I was expecting big fanfare as Teel finally gets what he/she has been wanting since the first book. When it does finally happen, it's not as grand as I thought it'd would be. Also, what I wasn't expecting was Erin to get attracted to Teel as that has never happened with any of the other lamp holders before. It just seemed a bit unnecessary to me. She already had so much going on in her life that I felt the attraction was really out of place. This is especially odd since Teel's gender changes constantly but it's never brought up when Teel appears as a female.

While each book can be read as a standalone, I do suggest reading the first two books to get a better understanding of Teel's desire to go to the garden. There is some repetitive stuff as Teel has to explain the stipulations to the wishes and each women apparently does the same thing before fully understanding what is going on. However each has a good story of overcoming failures and a really good romance gets going. I'm sad that the series has come to an end but I'm satisfied with how it all concluded. Now if I could only find my own genie in a bottle as there are several wishes that I would like to make...

To Wish or Not to Wish by Mindy Klasky is published by Mira (2010)

This review copy was provided by the Amazon Vine program

Other books in the As You Wish series that I have reviewed:

When Good Wishes Go Bad (Book 2)