Reviews

How to Make a Wish — Ashley Herring Blake (ARC Review)

July 22, 2017

I originally published this review in April 2017, but on July 21, realized that I had left a lot unsaid and decided to edit, polish, and repost my thoughts on this amazing book.

“I thought that was how every girl saw other girls – this mix between beauty and awe and curiosity, a thin layer of lust just underneath. Took until I was fourteen to realize that no, the way I thought about other girls was a little different.”

Let me begin by saying that I am a total sucker for diverse reads, but especially those involving queer women. Being a member of the LGBTQ+ community who did not come to accept myself until far later in life than ideal, these coming-out stories resonate hard with me.

This book perfectly straddles the line between “tough topics” and “fluffy summer read”. We get a taste of each, depending on who Grace is currently surrounded by, but it never leans overwhelmingly in either direction. Given that Eva’s mother has recently passed, there is even a sense of underlying heaviness in many of the “fluffy” scenes.

All in all, I would call this a coming-of-age story more than anything: Grace must juggle coming to terms with her own sexuality, accepting her first relationship with another girl, and learning how to navigate the treacherous waters of her relationship with a neglectful and scatterbrained mother who ranges anywhere from merely problematic to downright abusive.

PLOT ➳➳
Grace’s life has never been “normal”, not since her dad died in Afghanistan during her toddler years. Her mother has never fully recovered from her grief, and so she drags Grace all over the small Cape town they live in, flitting from one place to the next (and one man to the next) as effortlessly as a butterfly. Few things are consistent in Grace’s life: her best friend Luca, purple nail polish, and the inability to love anyone – including herself – with as much effort as she must expend just to keep her mother safe.

In comes Eva, family friend of Luca’s mother; a beautiful, biracial dancer whose mother has just passed away, who eats peanut butter fresh from the jar, who lets people see her cry, and most of all, seems to seek something a little bit heavier than friendship with Grace. Can Grace look past the disaster of her home life long enough to allow anyone else in, or is she doomed to repeat the mistakes surrounding her?

GRACE ➳➳
Grace is a delightful narrator. She feels authentically teenaged, sassy and frustrated and moody, but she also has a weight to her soul that ages her tremendously and fits perfectly with the idea of any child forced to grow up too fast. She struggles constantly between wanting to demand that her mother be a mother, or wanting to protect her at all costs. I think anyone who grew up with problematic family members could relate really well to Grace’s conflicts in this aspect.

EVA ➳➳
Eva is my favorite character in this book, by far. She is the perfect quintessential “quirky teen” who OWNS her race and her sexuality with pride. She offers a role of someone who has seen adversity and overcome it with a well of self-assuredness that I envy, even now. The moments discussing her recently deceased mother made my heart ache for her, but for the most part, she’s a pretty constant source of entertainment.

SEXUALITY ➳➳
The biggest reason why I fell so quickly in love with the story and the characters is the bi rep. My god, there were times that Grace was explaining her feelings and I swear, I was teleported back to my own teenaged brain, full of confusion and self-doubt and questions, and all I could think was, I wish I’d had this book ten years ago. Grace isn’t quite 100% certain of herself, but she’s accepted her sexuality enough to not be ashamed, and it was such a refreshing view point.

The quote I chose for the beginning of this review literally forced me to close the book and just breathe for a few minutes, because it rang so solidly true with me. I found myself thinking, on multiple occasions, that I wondered if Ashley Herring Blake herself is a queer woman, because she gets it (spoiler alert: I later found out she’s a proud bi woman!). I just don’t have enough good things to say about how authentic this representation felt, and I cannot wait for more of her writing, because queer gals NEED material like this.

I would recommend this all day, every day, to anyone who enjoys a good YA contemporary. If you’re a queer woman looking for a character to see yourself in, read this. If you’re straight as a ruler and don’t understand bisexuality in the slightest, read this. If you’re just a human being looking for a good way to spend an afternoon, read this.

Thank you so much to the folks at HMH Books for Young Readers for this gorgeous ARC! All opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

5h

Goodreads | Amazon | BookDepository

You Might Also Like

14 Comments

  • Reply T5W 05.17.17: Summer Reads – howling libraries May 17, 2017 at 3:32 pm

    […] Review […]

  • Reply Kourtni @ Kourtni Reads June 24, 2017 at 5:16 pm

    I’m so, so happy to see how much you loved this! I’m even more excited to read it now. Great review!! 🙂

  • Reply Top 10 Tuesday: Best Reads of 2017 (So Far) – howling libraries June 27, 2017 at 12:01 am

    […] REVIEW HERE […]

  • Reply Sarah July 22, 2017 at 10:50 am

    Omg I have to read this!!!!

  • Reply T10T: Hidden Gems in YA – howling libraries August 29, 2017 at 12:04 am

    […] review […]

  • Reply T10T: Favorite 2017 Releases – Contemporary Edition! – howling libraries December 12, 2017 at 12:02 am

    […] 6. How to Make a Wish – Ashley Herring Blake – May 2017 A young bisexual girl learning how to prioritize her own health and well-being after a lifetime of focusing instead on taking care of her abusive, alcoholic mother, while also exploring her love of music and the beautiful black girl who’s just moved to town. Absolutely stunning, fun, heavy, sweet, and everything I wanted it to be. (POC: black, bisexual, lesbian, own-voice for bisexuality) REVIEW HERE […]

  • Reply The “Books Under the Tree” Tag! – howling libraries December 21, 2017 at 11:04 am

    […] are a few, but some of the main ones coming to mind are The Hate U Give (review coming very soon!), How to Make a Wish, or Now I […]

  • Reply DISCUSSION: My Top Reads of 2017 – howling libraries January 4, 2018 at 11:02 am

    […] 13. How to Make a Wish […]

  • Reply Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World — Ashley Herring Blake (ARC Review) – howling libraries March 5, 2018 at 11:06 am

    […] adored Ashley Herring Blake’s YA novels so tremendously (as you can see from my raving reviews of How to Make a Wish and Girl Made of Stars), that I knew I would love this little MG story, too, and was elated when […]

  • Reply March ’18 Haul – howling libraries March 30, 2018 at 11:05 am

    […] Upside of Unrequited A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares How to Make a Wish (ARC review here) Love Letters to the Dead Nyxia More Happy Than Not The Book of the Unnamed Midwife […]

  • Reply June/Pride Wrap – howling libraries June 30, 2018 at 11:02 am

    […] to Make a Wish — Ashley Herring Blake ★★★★★ ??? REVIEW HERE This was another reread, and while I’m leaving it at 5 stars for how much it meant to me (as […]

  • Reply T10T: Books I Saw Myself In – howling libraries May 7, 2019 at 12:00 am

    […] How to Make a Wish (review) “I thought that was how every girl saw other girls – this mix between beauty and awe and […]

  • Say hello! ♥

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    %d bloggers like this: