There are aspects of this book that read like your average summer contemporary book. Not average in terms of quality, but in the vibe and setting and style. This book is summery. There are lighthouses and boat rides on the 4th of July and nighttime parties on the beach. And, of course, we can't forget the love story. These familiar elements of the book really helped me to fall into the world and the story and honestly? Just made me want to fast forward to the summer time.

BUT let me talk about all the stuff in this book that is beyond the usual YA contemporary and how it did all of those things very right.

What intrigued me enough about this book that it was one of my most anticipated releases of the year? Well, a f/f romance for one. I'm obviously falling for those constantly. But more than that, the MC is bisexual (#ownvoices) and the love interest is a biracial lesbian. And them falling for each other was just so lovely?? They were snarky and doubtful and tender and I loved them. Grace, the MC, has a couple of really fantastic conversations about bisexuality and what it means to her that I thought were incredibly well done. And honestly, as a f/f romance, there was a lot to like. This hit all my ladies loving ladies notes, and that made my heart glow. Grace and Eva fit in a really fantastic way together and I loved their scenes where they could just flirt and tease and make me grin.

One of the central parts of this book is the relationship Grace has with her mother. That is, their not-so-great relationship in which Maggie is the one acting like a child and Grace is constantly forced to take responsibility. It is a really heartbreaking relationship to read. It is done in an honest and up-close way that makes it difficult to stomach at times, as you see this person constantly doing exactly what you, as a reader, know will hurt Grace the most. It's hard to read, but it is done incredibly well in terms of exploring an unhealthy parent-child relationship, and in terms of seeing how the child in these situations thinks. The way Grace rationalizes things at times is so frustrating, because you're on the outside as a reader, but also it allows you to see how she has been forced to reach this way of rationalizing.

There was some stuff here that was a bit tropey for me. Like, the love interest coming in through a window in the middle of the night. Or some of the little conversations that happen between Grace and her best friend, Luca. It only happened occasionally, and really only at the beginning rather than the end, but those moments would frustrate me. Obviously these aren't terrible, but they would pull me out of the story when they happened a bit.

This was a really lovely contemporary. It hit all the right notes with a romance. It did a lot right in talking about unhealthy parent-child relationships. The external support system Grace had was excellent and I really loved them all. They all felt like real characters that exist out there in the world. And even though we didn't see as much of it, I thought Eva's grief was shown and discussed perfectly. It also leads to her having a whole conversation with Grace about how the ballet world is incredibly white??? Excellent. More of that, please.

In fact, to summarize my feelings, I want more of all of this.

This was one of my most hyped up lgbt+ reads of the year because hey, there's not much f/f romance around. As a warning this book has emotional abuse from a parent who has mental health problems.

Grace spends her life moving between homes of her unbalanced mother's boyfriends, where we pick up in the book she finds out that her mum is now dating her ex boyfriend's dad and she now has to live with her ex boyfriend. Then Eva moves to town after losing her mum and Grace and Eva form an unlikely connection.

There was both bisexual and lesbian representation in this book which is always a good thing and the love interest was biracial which made it even better.

My biggest issue was just that I wished that Grace had communicated with Eva better. I wish she had actually told her that Eva having a relationship with her mother made her uncomfortable. In general I wish she had learned to put herself first a lot earlier, I felt very frustrated for a lot of this novel by Grace's mum and whist obviously Blake wrote her character well for me to feel that way I think a little bit of communication would have alleviated some of that feeling.

The mum was honestly the worst character, she was so incredibly annoying and self obsessed. Now yes she had mental health problems, which is made clearly obvious and the MC is very good at not blaming her for every bad action but man it was so, I can't even think of the word but it left me feeling like "???" at times. Like of course I know people exist like this and live heir lives like this, but I struggle to understand it because I just don't know how they can do it. All I can say is that Blake wrote her really well. She was complex, as was every character. Both the MC, love interest and the best friend had some really good character development and it made the book an absolute joy to read.

There was a scene where our MC masturbates in this which I absolutely adored, not in a pervy way, but I'm all about books normalising female masturbation. You barely read about female masturbation in adult books let alone young adult books. I want young girls to know it's ok to explore their bodies in the same ways that boys do and that it's normal and there's nothing wrong or promiscuous about it.

I want to read more from Ashley Herring Blake now, especially if she writes more lgbt+ books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Book Group and HMH Books for Young Readers for the ARC, How To Make A Wish by Ashley Herring Blake. I really really really liked this book! The inner turmoil Grace suffers stems from a lifetime of having to protect and save her totally irresponsible mother from bars, bad boyfriends, and her very scary reality. This has made Grace grow up tough and prickly and rather than grow close, she keeps everyone at a distance or she just ducks and runs. All that changes the summer she meets grief stricken Eve, whose mother has died. Eve and Grace click, and as her summer spirals out of control; Eve saves Grace by slipping into her window for nightly jaunts to the lighthouse, sharing her peanut butter, and her heart. Blake has crafted a beautiful LGBTQ read that honestly deals with friendship, family, death, grief, and finding oneself. Since it is due out in May, it will be a great beach read too. I fell in love with this book!

I was overall not happy with this book. I hate to say that cause I normally never find a book that I am not happy to read or can relate to. I just felt like this book was not a good fit for me

This novel touched some taboos in the YA world. And I think that was one of the most positive points of this book. No matter how you look at it this book it's incredibly important. I loved the characters and the storyline. The only reason why I didn't give this books 5 stars was because I felt like some things were lacking.
(will add blog review as soon as possible)

Finding myself accurately represented in books always feels amazing.
Blake's storytelling is enchanting and i'm looking forward to reading more of her work. This is now one of my favorite books. Review on my youtube channel soon!

I think that both female lead characters were very well built. Their backgrounds were pretty well fleshed out as was their budding relationship. I enjoyed that both girls were pretty much opposites of each other--where one was a cynic and more negative and shut off, but other was bright, positive and kind. They really complimented each other.

The romance was light, but sweet. I was impressed that neither girl was really "questioning" her sexuality, they were just both gay. I liked the surety of it. Very impressive!

The family drama was a nice element.

Overall, a great read! Would recommend!

I read Ashley Herring Blake’s debut novel, Suffer Love, last year and I REALLY loved it. It was quick paced, just the right amount of twisted and complicated and, well, a really enjoyable read.

As soon as her new book was announced, I knew it was something I SIMPLY had to get my hands on. Biracial AND Bisexual characters? GIVE IT TO ME NOW.

I’ll be honest, it took me a while to get used to the characters in this book.

For starters, I kept comparing How To Make A Wish to Suffer Love and I kept comparing Eva and Grace together to Sam and Hadley. A well done romance is a well done romance, and for some reason, Eva and Grace felt sort of chemistry-less. I thought that they made AMAZING CHARACTERS, filled with pain and insecurities individually, and EVEN AS FRIENDS, but for some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that that Chemistry was missing.

It felt like they needed each other to survive the stuff going on in their lives but that’s about it.

MORE THAN ANYTHING, the reason it took me so long to actually enjoy the book was Maggie, Grace’s mom.

Usually, I wouldn’t even BELIEVE that a mother could be the way she did, but over these past few months, I’ve seen a friend go through something SO SIMILAR, that this sort of hit a raw nerve for me and all I was seeing was red.

About twenty percent into the book, I got over my anger towards Grace’s mom and enjoyed the book.
Ashley Herring Blake managed to capture grief with such clarity, it was heart-breaking. I love that Grace tapped out her pieces out any surface ever, because that is EXACTLY what I do when I’m learning a new piano piece. I love that there was SO MUCH HOPE, LOVE, FAMILY AND DESPAIR IN THIS BOOK. I love the peanut butter jokes, I loved the gnomes in compromising positions and I LOVED LUCA and Emmy.

I was SO SO HAPPY that there was finally a boy-girl friendship that didn’t revolve around romance and was ACTUALLY FUN and filled with teasing and slight bodily harm.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been comparing both of Ashley Blake’s books, because they were both beautiful in their own way.

A wonderful book on what it means to love after you lose the person you loved the most, and how to let go of someone you love. 4 stars.

It's too LGBTQIA for me, but overall it was a good book!

How to Make a Wish is a character driven book with a really quiet story, it takes turns being heartbreaking, honest, complicated, adorable and heartwarming. Something that makes this book incredibly special is the fact that it's #ownvoices in terms of sexuality, both the author and the main character are bisexual. The way in which Grace's bisexuality is describe in the book feels real and honest and the way her bisexuality is treated and viewed by other characters as something normal is so meaningful. The representation in this book is accurate and thoughtful and it's not limited to bisexuality, there's also amazing representation with the love interest, Eva, which is a biracial lesbian girl and I think this is especially important because there's so little accurate representation of biracial people that having such a positive and relevant representation means a lot.

One of the best things about this book is the romance, Grace and Eva are really cute together and their interactions are really smart and entertaining. There are some steamy moments in this book; there are make out scenes and a sex scene and I think there is so much sex positivity and also it's amazing to see how Grace and Eva always make sure the other is comfortable with what they are doing, they always ask for verbal consent and I think the fact that that is portrait makes this a really valuable book. Also, there's female masturbation in this book and again the sex positivity is off the charts, it's shown like something natural and normal and that's incredible. Furthermore, it's delightful to see an amazing platonic relationship between a girl and a boy being present in this story. Grace and Luca are best friends, there are no secondary motivations, neither is in love with the other, they are just friends and that is refreshing.

Now, for the heartbreaking part of this book, one of the main parts of the story revolves around this raw, painful and honest depiction of the relationship between Grace and her mother. Maggie, Grace's mother, is an unreliable parent, she's reckless, unpredictable and clueless, she puts her child in impossible situations and this part is so well-written that it's easy to feel and connect with Grace's anger, sadness and her feelings of helplessness. There's so many moments between Grace and Maggie that are so profundly heartbreaking that they make reading this book really hard. On the other hand, there's Eva, who's mother just passed away and this book explores grief in a devastating way. There's this scene in the beach when Grace and Eva first meet that it's so heartbreaking and raw, that it's hard to imagine how someone is able to write a scene that can make the reader feel so much. Another thing that it's magnificent in this book is the fact that as much as Grace makes Eva feel better, Eva's grief doesn't go away, it's always there and that so incredibly honest and sad.

Overall, this was a fantastic book with a diverse cast of characters and a story that at times makes you feel devastated and at other times can be heartwarming.

This book hit so many things that I love as a reader. Fantastic bi rep. Wonderful portrayal of a male/female friendship because yes, they do exist. It definitely had its sadder parts that tugged on my heart strings, but the romance remained extremely swoony. All in all, it was an amazing book. One of my all time favorite f/f romances for sure!
Bullet points!
Characters: there was only one character I didn't like and that was the MC's mom. And i'm pretty sure that's the point.
Romance: SWOOOOON! healthy. slow build. realistic!
Diversity: queer romance, biracial love interest.

An interesting portrait of a troubled mother-daughter relationship where the roles are reversed. Grace continually excuses her mom's bad behavior in the hopes that one day her mom will respond in the way she should. Events pile up until she can't excuse them anymore. At the same time, Eva, a grieving young woman, comes into her life and brings a surprising romance with her.

Grace has come back from a holiday to find that her mum has uprooted their home and moved in with her latest guy.
But the craziest thing is that her ex boyfriend is now her kind of step brother for however long the relationship plays out for.
Plus his dad is totally over the top in physical affection of her mother, including in front of the teens.

Grace's friend Luca, lives with his mum and they both run and work in their diner. Through Luca, Grace is told of a girl called Eva, her mum has passed away and is coming to stay for a bit with him and his mum.

When Grace later finds herself on a secluded beach, she meets a girl sobbing, sat on the sand eating peanut butter alone. The girl is Eva. Thus ensues a fast turn of events consisting of Eva sneaking into Grace's room at night and hanging out together at the top of the lighthouse.

Throughout the book, we learnt of Grace's mum and the actions she takes being extremely wrong and dangerous to others around her. She seems very switched off in parts yet Grace and Eva are there to help her as they have to be. The two girls have their passions and hopes to achieve their goals of Grace being a Pianist professionally and Eva a ballet dancer professionally just like her mother was.

The book also had strong relationship lines around friendship, lesbian/bisexual characters and teenage behaviour in general.

In this book, I really didn't like the main character's mum, she came across as being trying and needy over attention and her male relations. Some of the things she came out with were a little on the edge of what you should discuss with your daughter in real life anyway. However, we do discover the issues surrounding her character like consuming too much alcohol and excessive intake of it and raising a young baby on your own after her husband died in war and she does face up to it.

Overall it was a great book about finding the true you in career hopes and in love. Thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

I received a copy from Netgalley.

A gut wrencher of an emotional ride. This novel tells the story of Grace who lives with her flighty mom who goes through strings of bad relationships. Grace only has one real friend, Luca, who looks out for her. When new girl Eva comes to town and moves in with Luca and his mom, she begins a friendship with Grace that slowly turns into something more. All the while things with Grace’s mom go from bad to worse, all the while Grace claiming she’s coping with it all and she’s “fine”. But is she?

The novel was deeply moving and very emotional and made me cry more than a few times as Grace struggles to keep her head above water. Her mom is a new contender for one of the worst YA parents. Her dad has never been in the picture, her mom has always followed her “creative” side, flitting from place to place and relationship to relationship, with seemingly little care to how all of this affects Grace. Mom also drinks.

At the start of the novel Grace’s mom has moved in with a new boyfriend, Pete, who happens to be the dad of one of Grace’s ex boyfriends, Jay, who was an asshole when they broke up. Pete actually turned out to be a pretty nice guy. Jay, who was big dick through most of the novel even stepped up to the plate and turned out to be surprising.

Grace and Eva start to bond and get to know each other, and it’s a delightful slow burn sizzle as things progress between them. Eva’s dealing with the death of her mom, (I can’t remember why her dad wasn’t in the picture). Grace sort of doesn’t know how to handle that. The more time they spent together the closer they become and it turns into a much deeper relationship. Eva’s completely comfortable and aware of her own sexuality - she makes it plain she likes girls. Grace is struggling - she likes both boys and girls and does eventually come to the conclusion she’s bisexual. Bisexual representation was handled really well. And there were some lovely romantic scenes between Grace and Eva.

But all the while Grace’s mom is flitting about, things start to go missing from Pete’s house. While Grace is mortified, mom’s like, oh it’s no big deal. Then Mom starts cooing over Eva, focusing most of her attention on helping Eva deal with her grief, which is pissing Grace off to no end.

Grace had a bit of a loner complex about her, though she had her BFF Luca, Luca had a new girlfriend Kimber, who was taking up a lot of his time, and while she and Grace got along, they weren’t exactly on the BFF train. More for Grace to deal with. She had a snarky attitude about her, and given her circumstances, it’s understandable, she’s had to deal with some tough situations where her mom is concerned. Grace has always been the responsible one, taking care of her mother, dragging her out of seedy bars, making sure rent and bills are paid. Basically having to grow up way too fast.

Though Grace has a dream of being a concert pianist. She’s got the talent, and even has an audition for a fancy music school in Manhattan. Though reality gets in the way and she’s struggling with the idea of leaving mom to cope on her own. Mom never seems to listen Grace. Mom’s been telling her they’ll make a day of it for Grace’s audition and go spend some time together in New York, and Grace seems to be clinging to the hope this of this idea. Yet, part of her isn’t entirely sure of whether or not it will happen due to circumstances in the novel. It’s gut-wrenching to read about Grace agonising over this.

Grace has comforting relief in Eva as their relationship takes a deeper turn, but with mom’s involvement in fawning over Eva, it’s not helping. Grace is pushing her anger and resentment back again and again and there’s only so much of this anyone can take before it inevitably explodes.

When it goes wrong, it goes wrong fast and hard and it’s painful to read. It was very emotional in parts, very raw and cut deep. I really wanted to slap the mother and hug Grace a lot. Grace handled a lot of things with immense maturity, even though she had (and was more than entitled to) a few stroppy moments.

While her mom was awful, the saving light adult in the novel came from Luca’s mom Emmy, who was there throughout when Grace needed someone, and really came through like a beacon when things got to the really tough stage. Emmy was the mom Grace really deserved. Though while her own was awful, at the same time, you can understand Grace’s attachment and reluctance to leave her to it, even when things got bad. Until they reached boiling point.

A beautifully, lyrically written novel, though can be very tough. I loved it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group for approving my request to view the title.

Sweet lord, this book utterly struck something within me.

How to Make a Wish follows Grace Glasser, a seventeen year old girl who's never really seemed to have anything permanent apart from her best friend and her love for music. After moving into yet another house with yet another of her mum's less than permanent boyfriends, Grace meets Eva, a biracial girl consumed by grief from the recent death of her mother.
Eva likes girls, always has and always will, and her frankness about it stirs up buried thoughts she's never really had the chance to fully explore. As Eva starts to become a bigger and bigger part of Grace's life, she also becomes a bigger part of her problems, which leads to heavy consequences for everyone involved.

A love story between a lesbian and a bisexual girl with an unexpected happy ending: sign me up.

How to Make a Wish is both heartbreaking and heart making (I know that's not a real thing but).
It's a sweet love story with massive undertones of mental illness from all three of the main females. It's realistic and raw and it made

This is my first book by this author and I don't think this will be my last. This was a sweet book about loss and love. It was interesting to read how one person's passing changed so many lives and in different ways. The writing was heartfelt and the book had great depth. Each character was multifaceted and deep.

I would really love to read this, but can't read on anything except my kindle. The file sent won't work on there for me. I'm very sorry. Thank you for giving me the chance. Hopefully I can read and review it later on.

It won't let me download this title onto my reading device (kindle) so I didn't get a chance to read it, but it comes out in a few short months but I've heard really amazing things about it, so I am super excited to read it when it releases!

This book was a quick, enjoyable read. Grace's relationship with her mother and other friends felt authentic, and the way they affected her burgeoning relationship with Grace also felt real. I look forward to recommending this to fans of Sarah Dessen; it's a similar but alternative to the heterosexual relationships usually featured in Dessen's stories.