A review by sarahv
What You Wish for by Katherine Center

emotional hopeful relaxing medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I enjoy the writing style of Katherine Center. I liked the main character and the friends and town. I did find her description of the absurd outfits she was wearing a little distracting. However, I did not like the love interest very much.

Spoiler

He is recovering from trauma as a teacher during a school shooting. The first day as the principal of the new school, he shoots off a fake gun in the building. He spends the rest of the book squashing all joy and treating the children and teachers like prisoners. He comes around in the end, but I found it hard to like him after that.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Child death, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Death and Grief

A past school shooting is one of the central plots of this book. At the very beginning of the book, someone dies unexpectedly of a stroke and the rest of the book the main character is dealing with grief.