Book Review: I Wish for You
I Wish for You. Camilla Isley. Pink Bloom Press, Chicago, IL. July, 2015, Trade Paperback and E-book, 324 pages.
Reviewed by Starza Thompson.
I Wish for You by Camilla Isley is a romantic comedy with an Aladdin-like theme. The story of a woman trying to stop a wedding and win back the love of her life, it takes readers on a journey of lost love, magic, and mystery.
Joyfully unexpected, I Wish for You is packed with adventure, fun, and a surprise ending that leaves readers wishing for their own modern day fairytale.
The action opens with Ally Johnson, a woman in her late twenties, still pining for a man who had rejected her a year earlier. What is worse, he is engaged to one of her coworkers, who rubs the engagement in Ally’s face at every chance she gets.
Just as Ally hits close to rock bottom she comes upon an ancient box equipped with Arthur, a magical genie who has the power to change her life forever.
Author Camilla Isley left a corporate career to follow her husband around the world. Isley has combined real-life adventure with fantasy to write and publish romantic comedy novels under the Pink Bloom Press imprint. I Wish for You is Isley’s first novel.
I love the novel’s premise: an ancient genie granting wishes in a modern era to help a woman reunite with her true love. Incorporating all the elements of a great story—love, mystery, magic, and conflict—it skillfully adapts a classic story to the present day. Isley seamlessly addresses issues such as society’s general mistrust of strangers, the prevalence of mobile phones, and the difficulty of modern dating in ways that enhance the story.
However, certain improvements would make the story even better. More thorough editing could have corrected punctuation issues in the book. Her incorrect and inconsistent placement of periods outside quotation marks was a distraction, as was her use of multiple exclamation points to signify emotion. Sprinkled liberally across the pages, they prevent readers from being as engaged as they might have been had emotions been conveyed through the writing.
In addition, Ally Johnson is an extremely unlikeable character: entitled, whiny, and disrespectful. Normally I can accept unlikeable protagonists; however, in romantic comedies, the reader needs to relate to and cheer on the female lead, not wonder why anyone would want to date her in the first place. I would have enjoyed seeing Ally as a likeable, genuine person by the end of the novel so I could better connect with her.
While there are some issues with the book, the premise and the delivery make this story a fun and exciting read. I Wish for You combines the elements of a great romantic comedy with the classic Aladdin tale. It invites readers to fantasize about what they would do for love while immersed in Ally Johnson’s adventure of the heart with a mysterious genie named Arthur. I recommend this book for anyone with a penchant for unexpected endings, love, magic, and modern day fairytales.