Author: Katherine Center
Genre: Women's Fiction, Romance
What you wish for started on a merry tone, despite the tragic event that opens the story. The novel reads as if the narrator, who is the main character, Samantha Casey tells a story to a friend. Sam is a 28 year old woman, a librarian at an elementary school in Galveston, Texas. However, she talks and feels and behaves like a much younger woman, often times downright immature. This made the novel read like almost like a YA novel, but with adult characters.
It has a small town vibe to it, with a tight knit school community, all working to make the school a colorful and joyful haven for the kids. We learn mostly about Samantha, her guardian parents Max and Babette, her best friend Alice, and her crush Duncan, whose presence at the school is the plot of the story. We learn everything about Duncan through the lenses of Sam’s obsession with him. I mean, obsession. As I finished the novel I thought it was cute the way it ended, but looking at it objectively, it’s weird and cliché how things worked out for those two, as for all the other characters.
I can’t explain it, but although nothing really surprised me, not even the perfectly tied ending, I still enjoyed this one. I think it’s because I knew I was reading a romance novel, and I wasn’t expecting too much heaviness, or at least not heaviness met with pessimism. Or maybe it’s because we’re thrown right into the middle of two people’s stories, people who struggle to make sense of their lives, and one can’t really judge that.
I appreciated the themes of PTSD, epilepsy, school shooting and security, but these were in stark contrast with the over-joyous, we-try-maybe-too-hard-to-make-the-school-happy vibe. The focus is only on Samantha, her thoughts, her feelings, her wants, her needs, despite using “us” and “the school” to expand her opinions to other characters. The themes dealt with bring a serious note to a novel that focuses more on creating your own happiness and striving to hold on to hope and optimism.
By the half-point of the novel I just let myself go with the flow: everything was whimsical (especially the library, according to Samantha), silly things happened, old-Duncan’s personality and antics were sounding weirder and weirder, and the whole school was longing for a friendly clownish school. I wish we had learned more about what the kids thought about all that was happening.
It’s not the deepest book, clearly. Yet, it is a light summer read. If you’re looking for a happy ending novel, set in a small town, with romance and chemistry galore, this might be for you. I know I got all the warm, fuzzy feelings as I was reading it.
Disclaimer: I received a free e-book copy of the novel from the publisher via Net Galley. All thoughts expressed here are my own.
List of characters {contains spoilers!}:
Samantha Casey - 28 year old woman. she's a librarian at Kempner School in Galveston, TX. she's had a crush on Duncal Carpenter for six years. they were work colleagues at Andrews Prep School
Duncan Carpenter - new principal. focused on school security because he has PTSD- he was shot at school and almost died. a student died.
Max and Babette Kempner - school founders. Max dies on his 60th birthday.
Tina Buckley - Max and Babette's daughter
Kent Buckley - her husband
Clay Buckley - their third grade son
Alice - Sam's best friend. a math teacher. her fiance Marco is in the navy- deployed.
Helen and Jake - Duncan's sister and brother-in-law. Jake is blind. He's the host of Everything's Invisible podcast. Vicky and Addie are their daughters.
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