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A review by r_j_setser
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
I DNF'd around 100 pages, but then I skimmed the rest of it to confirm my theories, and yea, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. The story was just not captivating and there were several things that made me feel icky.
Spoilers beyond this point!
Lucy's immaturity in trying to adopt one of her orphaned students was frustrating to read, and I thought the relationship she had with Christopher reflected that immaturity. She gave him a lot of false hope and promises that she knew she couldn't keep, and I just cringed every time she spoke to him. She was very possessive of him, too, without having a valid right to be.
Old man Jack Masterson struck me as really strange. Like, I know this is supposed to be similar to Willie Wonka, but Wonka was strange in a charming way (at least in the movies, I haven't read the book). Masterson was almost creepy old man vibes in writing back to all these kids who ran away from their homes to his HOUSE and telling them that he would love to be their dad... And then the game was only for those same kids who successfully made it to his house once... I don't know. It was just crossing the "creep" line for me.
But the DNF factor was when Hugo (the love interest) knew Lucy as a 6-year-old child... age-gap romances are fine with me, but not when the man was twenty-something and MET and KNEW the young girl at SIX. No, thank you. That's not cool. Especially since Lucy's previously abusive relationship was also a large age-gap romance from when she was a teen. And I think that because of these icky age-gap romance vibes, it added to the inappropriate factors of her relationship with Christopher. There were just a LOT of child-grooming vibes even though nothing actually happened of that nature. It was just... off.
I don't know. This book seemed so charming, but the further I read, the more I got the icky shivers.
Spoilers beyond this point!
Lucy's immaturity in trying to adopt one of her orphaned students was frustrating to read, and I thought the relationship she had with Christopher reflected that immaturity. She gave him a lot of false hope and promises that she knew she couldn't keep, and I just cringed every time she spoke to him. She was very possessive of him, too, without having a valid right to be.
Old man Jack Masterson struck me as really strange. Like, I know this is supposed to be similar to Willie Wonka, but Wonka was strange in a charming way (at least in the movies, I haven't read the book). Masterson was almost creepy old man vibes in writing back to all these kids who ran away from their homes to his HOUSE and telling them that he would love to be their dad... And then the game was only for those same kids who successfully made it to his house once... I don't know. It was just crossing the "creep" line for me.
But the DNF factor was when Hugo (the love interest) knew Lucy as a 6-year-old child... age-gap romances are fine with me, but not when the man was twenty-something and MET and KNEW the young girl at SIX. No, thank you. That's not cool. Especially since Lucy's previously abusive relationship was also a large age-gap romance from when she was a teen. And I think that because of these icky age-gap romance vibes, it added to the inappropriate factors of her relationship with Christopher. There were just a LOT of child-grooming vibes even though nothing actually happened of that nature. It was just... off.
I don't know. This book seemed so charming, but the further I read, the more I got the icky shivers.