There is something appealing about an unlikable main character and a bit of magical realism. This is a unique coming of age story in which the main character learns a lot about himself and what he wishes for.

Everyone is annoying in this novel, starting from the main character. I don't like him and I kept reading just to discover new instances where he annoys me. The other characters are not impressive, and the plot is lacking. I was expecting more from this one, but I finished it disappointed.

I haven’t gotten around to read this yet, my TBR is so long, sadly this got pushed back, but I’m hoping to get to it soon!

I like the overall premise to As You Wish. Everyone in the town gets to make a wish on their 18th birthday that comes true. Yes, there are lots of caveats, but that is the overall idea. The main narrator explores whether making the wishes is a good or a bad thing and how each person's wish ultimately changes his/her life. I found this to be an original YA plot and I liked the middle-of-nowhere Southwest location. What didn't work for me? The religion thrown in. I really didn't see the point and it felt a bit preachy to me. Let me say this is NOT a religious book, but I don't really understand why religion was even brought into the story. Overall, I liked but didn't love this one. I found it enjoyable to return to. I liked it better as audio than as the e-book that I started with.

Yawnfest. Nowhere near as good as I thought it would he. That and the cover change. Why would you make such gorgeous cover into something so generic.

I couldn't do it.
All right, I'm lying, I could've done it.
Finish this book, that is.
But I didn't want to.
It started off quite interesting, but didn't manage to hold my attention.
Felt pretty slow-paced and I didn't connect to the main characters.

Maybe one day I get back to it.

An interesting premise that is well-executed the majority of the time through the book. The ending had a surprising twist which I did not see coming!

This book was one of the first books I requested from NetGalley because the premise sounded really intriguing. A town where every person gets one wish when they were eighteen – that is a fascinating premise. And sometimes this book lived up to it and other times it really didn’t.

Eldon has twenty-five days until his eighteenth birthday and he doesn’t know what he wants to wish for, or even if he wants to wish. Everyone has their own opinion about what he should wish for and he goes through the book finding out what people wished for and whether they regretted it. As he does so, Eldon is confronted with himself as a person as he deals with grief, his future and his friends.

Our protagonist is Eldon and he’s more than a little self-absorbed. This is understandable, considering what happened before the book started, but at other times, it just gets really, really selfish. I don’t mind unlikeable protagonists, but Eldon was fairly bland for the first half of the book. I didn’t particularly care about him because it seemed like he didn’t really care about anything around him. At first I figured this was a writing choice out of Eldon’s grief, but as the book went on, I found it was just the writing style. The times I really felt connected to Eldon was when his relationship with his sister was at the forefront, even more so than his friends, his ex-girlfriend or his parents.

The plot of this book is Eldon debating about what he was going to wish for and trying to decide by asking other people. While I found it interesting as we looked at who wished for what and how it backfired for everyone. It was fascinating to see how the theme of ‘be careful what you wish for’ was woven into every part of the book, as the magical wishes don’t cause instant happiness (even when you wish for that) and everyone has regrets, whether they wished or not. There were some stories which were especially tragic, like the man who wished not to be gay or the woman who wished for love from the boy she had a crush on when she was eighteen, only to tire of the endless worship and side glances she got from the people who knew what her wish had been. The town was an interesting place because having a town-wide secret just created a place where people never felt they could leave and so there was never anyone new. This part of the premise I thought was done really well, I really liked the setting and the world-building surrounding it.

I guessed about a third into the book what Eldon was going to wish for and therefore I wasn’t surprised in the least and this summed up the book for me. I didn’t hate it but it didn’t particularly strike a cord with me. I probably wouldn’t recommend it but it wasn’t an awful book, or even a particularly slow one. I finished this book pretty quickly and found it a solid three-star book.

This book was so interesting. The premise was something I've not seen before so I'm really glad that I picked this one up. I was hooked from the very start and I just needed to know how it was going to end! I've been recommending this one a lot.

I really love the premise and setting of this story. The idea of an off-the-map, small town that is hiding this magical, and at times dark, secret is absolutely fascinating. The characters in this story are in this unique situation of getting to wish for just one thing and being guaranteed that that one thing will actually come true.

An interesting book! I greatly enjoyed this one from beginning to end. Full review coming soon on my blog.

I received an advance ecopy of this title via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. My thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for this opportunity.


Actual Rating: 4.5 Stars, but I round up because I'm generous and because math.


I'm very surprised at the lower reviews here. But then again, I suppose everyone is different, eh?

As You wish is a thought-provoking novel about wishing, and the pros and cons of having your wildest dream come true. The first thought, for me at least, was, "Ohhh!! I'd totally wish for ___."
As protagonist Eldon finds out, wishing isn't so simple.

Overall, this book was well-crafted, had great descriptions, and made me think. All requirements for a highly rated book.

The ending could have been a bit better, but it was a believable and still satisfying ending. Eldon is not a very likable character, but he intrigues and his journey on his road to his 18th birthday and his life-altering wish kept me reading. And it's really refreshing to not have a Mary (or Martin?) Sue protagonist. And static characters that don't change (or change very little) through the course of a book are refreshing and REAL. Not everyone has a mind-bending experience that alters everything about them forever.
Rest assured, Eldon does undergo change. He recognizes his flaws, but doesn't always do anything about them. Maybe that's why the reviews are low for this book? I found him refreshing. And NORMAL. He worries about NORMAL things as well as about wishes and their repercussions.

After all the craziness the world holds, even fantastical books need a little normalcy.

I absolutely adored this book, which was both a bit of a delightful surprise and the first step in laying a foundation of affection for everything that comes after this!

*** I received an ARC of this book from Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. However, this does not influence my opinions in any way.***

I received this novel a few months ago and started it right away. I was so excited to have it in my hands after loving Sedoti’s last novel, The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett. That being said, it took me a lot longer to finish this novel than expected. However, it was of no fault of the book and more like bad timing for my personal life. All that aside, let’s talk about why I loved this novel.

Yet again, Sedoti has blown me away with a wonderful book. She has a knack at writing unlikeable characters that you can’t help but still care about. In As You Wish, Eldon grew up in Madison, a desert town where everyone is granted a wish on their 18th birthday. In the novel, Eldon is questioning everything and is at a crossroads in his life – to wish or not to wish. Throughout the novel he is constantly faced with ultimatums. Save your sister vs. save yourself, wish vs don’t wish, good vs evil, etc. Much like most people would be in this kind of situation, Eldon feels lost and in no real control of his life. He spends the whole book in a constant debate. Honestly, at points his fickle nature can be a bit exhausting, but in the end it is all for the best.

There is a scene towards the end of the book where Eldon asks Abby if people really ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. After saying of course they do, Eldon starts contemplating a life without wishing. Overall, the two concepts are as similar as can be. Wishing, like growing up and deciding a career path at such a young age, is life changing. Additionally, much like Othello hints at, most people live their lives asking “What if?” In Madison, it is just a different form of pressure. That’s why Eldon is the perfect main character for this novel. He is fickle and unsure of his future let alone the future of his family, friends, and town. In his extreme way, he is the embodiment of teenage questions that are debated every day.

The idea behind “what if” is something that plagues most people in everyday life. Seeing that concept in such an interesting portrayal throughout this book was refreshing. And much like in The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett, the ending of As You Wish is left ambiguous. Sedoti allows the reader to make up their own judgment of Eldon and how his decisions affect the people around him. Personally, I believe he did the right thing. Wishing is a power far too powerful for any one town, let alone person, to control. Life is complicating enough without adding wishing to it.

Additionally, a topic that is briefly hinted at yet not fully discussed is the idea of working for what you have in life. If you can wish for the perfect life, will that life ever be satisfying? Fletcher put it best when he said, “How could I ever feel like it was really my accomplishment”. Whether you wish for money, schooling, to be a pilot, etc – if you didn’t earn it will it ever make you happy?

Madison is a town full of sad and angry people who have been given everything they wanted, yet it never made a difference. If you take one lesson from this novel, it is that life is hard and doesn’t always go to plan, but what is the point of living if you have nothing to live for? Nothing in life should be easy. It’s an uphill battle, but where you leave off in the end is what makes it worth the fight.

I recommend this book to anyone feeling like they have lost their way. It is a wonderful novel about regrets as well as self-discovery and the journeys we all take to achieve our goals and dreams. Additionally, this novel introduces the idea of what it means to be handed something verse earning something the hard way.

When I first started reading As You Wish by Chelsea Sedoti, I didn't think I would enjoy as much as I did. I thought that Chelsea did great bringing up Eldon's sister, but still keeping what was going on to a minimum, which is really what kept me reading. I just wanted to know more and know more.

I believe this book is great for young adults who are trying to overcome the idea of "peer pressure". I think that a lot of young adults would relate to Eldon in a few different ways. He eventually has to make a decision that will ultimately affect him and the town of Madison either way.

I would definitely recommend this book to young adult readers!

I found this really weird and I didn't really like how whiny the main character was. It is nice to see there are more books with male main characters but I just wasn't very interested in what he was saying. Like everytime he opened his mouth I groaned.

I was not a huge fan of this book. I didnt enjoy the writing style or anything. I dont mean any hate on this author, its just not my cup of tea

4.5 stars

Some towns have famous people living there that give them their something special. Others have world famous sites that make them shine. Madison has neither. As far as everyone outside of her borders is concerned, Madison is nothing more than a dusty blip on the map. Except, that’s not the case. Madison is anything but a boring hole in the wall in the middle of nowhere. Madison has a secret, a very special secret that her residents strive hard to keep under wraps from the rest of the world. They have a wishing cave, and every person gets to make one well thought out, solitary wish in said cave on their eighteenth birthday. And there’s more... The wishes come true.

Seventeen year old Eldon is fixing to turn eighteen. He knows he will get one opportunity to make a wish, yet he has no idea just exactly what he should wish for. With only a few weeks left before his big day, Eldon must navigate a slew of emotions in order to make a decision that will either make or break him.

As You Wish tells Eldon’s scintillating story and that of the intriguing town of Madison. I especially loved the way the character of the narrator/history book was written. It came alive for me and added so much to the book, which, as a whole, was already wonderful.

I think it’s safe to say Sedoti is an excellent writer who always touches on great themes in her Young Adult fiction. As You Wish dealt with ones such as love, forgiveness, friendship, hard work, and sacrifice. All things which readers of any age can benefit from and enjoy.

Thanks so much to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this review opportunity.

Eldon lives in Madison, a small town in the Mojave Desert, where everyone gets one wish on their eighteenth birthday and that wish always comes true, but not in ways people expect. Eldon sees how wishes are hurting the people around him and begins wondering how he can put an end to peoples’ misery. What can he wish for that will make everyone happy? With only 25 days to figure it out, the countdown begins.

I wanted to love this, I really did. The premise was right up my alley - a small no name town in the desert that is hiding a fascinating secret, the ability to grant birthday wishes on a resident's 18th birthday. Unfortunately, the rules of wishing, and all of the lore that could have been, wasn't. I wanted more from this book, more character development, more lore, faster pacing.