Book Review: Wish

TITLE: Wish
Book 1 in a planned series I believe
AUTHOR: Alexandra Bullen
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: drama, romance, teeny tiny bit of fantasy
PREMISE: Olivia has lost her twin sister and still dealing with the grief as well as a new town and school and making new friends. Then she gets a dress that she learns grants her three wishes...
MY REVIEW: I'm trying to rack my brain to figure out why exactly I didn't get into this book and I think it boils down to this: the idea of the book was more interesting then the actual book itself. Let me explain. I love the idea of a dres granting wishes. I mean who wouldn't? A thousand questions come to mind when you think of it: who made the dress? Why did they make the dress? What are the rules? Why those rules and just so many others. Unfortunately the author apparently didn't think this was worth exploring, instead we get told the boring day to day drama of the wisher instead. Then it plays out like a rehashing of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Minus the interesting characters and good writing.
That's another issue too: the writing is amatuerish. Long vivid descriptions that we don't need, needless detail, and stereotyping of high school and a rather blah main character that I just didn't get a feel for. Basically stuff we've seen before in YA. Nothing new. It's disappointing too. I mean if the author had done it in maybe the dressmaker's point of view I would have been a tad more interested then I was in the predictable angst tastic drama between Olivia and her friends.
It's not that the book is horrible, it's just been done a million times before and is rather boring. Plus again, the idea of the dress was more awesome then the actual book itself. Apparently there's going to be a second one out next year. Not sure if I'll bother with it.
WHO SHOULD READ: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fans, Gossip Girl fans
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five dresses

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