This story had so much potential. When I started reading it, I couldn’t remember what it was supposed to be about but the voice and writing style sucked me in immediately. The premise of the book is really quite interesting and got me thinking about what I would have wished for when I was 18 vs now as a 30 year old woman. How different my life would have been had what I wanted when I was 18 been made a reality!

The way this book is set up and the insight into characters (beside the main character) was really quite enjoyable. However, the main character is really not the nicest person and was difficult to like. That is unusual for me and while it didn’t really ruin it for me, I could see how it would possibly turn others off.

The book went into a completely different direction than expected and while I had high hopes for it, the ending was anti-climactic and disappointing. I wanted so much more and yet, I don’t really know where else I would have hoped it would go.

What makes the caves in Madison special? The wishing. The bigger question is why do the caves grant wishes? Of course, that's never fully explored. What does get explored is the tried-and-true cliche "be careful what you wish for" and how those wishes can really, years later, haunt you. Eldon's deep fear that he will wish incorrectly leads him to ask a variety of his townspeople about their wishes and their experiences in an effort to figure out his wish is done sensitively. However, the side plot about his sister detracts from that at important moments. His wish does tie in with what we know of him and who he's become; that we never really learn how it affects everyone else (beyond the short term) is a little disappointing but understandable.

I loved the first 2/3 of this book. The ending felt a little rushed, but I loved the world-building. Very interesting premise.

I hate to give bad reviews, but I really did not enjoy this book. The characters were very unlikable and i hated the ending. I liked the premise and I had high hopes but in the end it wasn't for me.

This book follows Eldon, a teenager in his last year of high school rapidly approaching his eighteenth birthday. This is important and the book revolvs around it, because in their town 18 marks their "wish day". Everyone in town gets one wish when they turn 18, and Eldon is struggling with what he should wish for. I felt like this book was very unique, it was definitely something i'd never read before and I loved the concept of the book. Eldon is definitely a flawed character which I love, because it made him more human. I couldn't relate with him, but I still loved reading his story. The writing style was easy to read and, descriptive, and held me captive. I would recommend this book. It felt almost contemporary with a hint of fantasy thrown in there.

I enjoyed the voice in As You Wish, and I really liked the premise. I was definitely compelled by the myth of the town, the wishing cave, and the stories of those who had made wishes and the aftermath. The little historical vignettes were my favorite part of the book.

However, I didn't care much for the choices Eldon made constantly throughout the book. And the plot twist really made me dislike him so much more. All I could think was "how dare he?"

So, definitely not a book for anyone desiring a nice, neat bow, but it is a good example of imperfect people living imperfect and messy lives.

Sadly I was disappointed in this book. The main thing that bothered me is that there just isn't enough story here. There aren't really that many obstacles to overcome. This is the plot of a short story, not a novel. Eldon is also pretty unlikeable as a character, with his final act (wishing the wish cave out of existence) just clinching his general lameness. He keeps going on about how he wants a choice, only to use it to deny that choice to others. A real downer of a book.

I received an ARC of As You Wish by Chelsea Sedoti, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review: 2.5 stars.

Do you believe in wishes? Do you believe somewhere in the world, there's a place, where wishes come true? Apparently,such a place exists in Madison.

Madison isn't like other towns. Not at all.
I'm not talking about aliens or anything ridiculous like that. No, the unusual thing about Madison, what we work hard to make sure no outsiders find out, is that everyone here gets to make a wish.
Mine is in twenty-six days


A small, desert town, not all that far from the lights of Las Vegas. In Madison, each resident, on his/her 18th Birthday, is given one wish.

So begins the story of Eldon's journey towards his wish.

Eldon is supposed to make his wish in less than a month, but he doesn't know what to do: a recent family tragedy has him pondering what's right.

The story was interesting, but it took a while for me to invest in its main character: Eldon is not likable. In fact, even once the wishing is over, I'm still not sure how I feel about him.

The only reason I hung with the story is because I became curious about the wish histories of the town's quirky residents.

If not for them, I don't know that I'd have finished the book at all.

Also, some of the less central characters offered much-needed perspective.

Norie and Merrill--both friends of Eldon--act as sounding boards during his internal wish battle. Each of them have already made their wish, and offer their story to Eldon as to the why of their wishes.

Norie offers religious perspective, while Merrill offers wisdom gleaned from personal experience: loss, abuse, and grief have made Merrill wise beyond his 18 years.

Eldon deserves neither of the aforementioned, in my opinion. He's often got his head stick so far up his backside he's unable to recognize the value of what they're giving him.

For me, Juniper (Eldon's ex-girlfriend) best echoed my thoughts about Eldon: he really needed to grow up. Long after the wishing has been done, Juniper is the only character who's honest with Eldon--no agenda, just honest--and I appreciated the author offering that to her readers.

Overall, it was a decent read, but it took me longer to get through it because it was difficult to relate to Eldon or care much about his journey.

In the end, those existing in the world around Eldon were the most captivating, and turned an otherwise mundane tale into something more human.

I approached this book with trepidation, having read Sedoti’s debut novel and really disliked it. However, I decided to give this author another chance and in a very small sense I’m glad that I got to experience this intriguing premise play out to the end.We start with a small day setting, in the deserts of Nevada that has one big secret that noone from the outside world can know.

You see Madison has this magical realism thing, where on every child’s 18th birthday, they get to make a wish in this cave and it comes true. There are rules and regulations of course, and our main character Eldon doesn’t know what’s he’s going to wish for so he goes around interviewing the townspeople in Madison.

Speaking of that, my favorite parts of the entire book were when we got vinyetes into the historical wishbook, which chronicles the mistakes and failures and heartaches that came from these foolish teenagers making an impulsive wish. Not all of the stories were like that of course, however the majority of them featured truly showed the darker side of Madison’s magic.

Eldon, our main character is an extremely unlikeable a*shole, who is selfish and could be compared to an ostrich sticking their head in the sand. I didn’t connect to him, didn’t feel any sympathy towards the consequences of his impulsive actions that he had to face. The further and further that I kept on reading, the more I realized that this jerk wasn’t going to change. I’m not a big fan of no character development throughout a 400 page book in which the character does nothing but whine about how he can’t make up his mind.

Also the plot moved along slower than a snail and nothing happened for the majority of the book, until the end where it disappointed me big time. There was lots of hypocrisy, and the book was trying to play God over this town which is just another one of the things that really bothered me. (view spoiler)

Not only that, but there is a character in this book who has wished away his gayness, but after that he has no romantic/sexual feelings towards anyone. The author portrays him as so SAD and PITIFUL and LONELY, and that is extremely ace-aro phobic, talking from experiences. We don’t need allo authors to portray the only aroace character in this book as a broken human being who has no life because he doesn’t feel any romantic/sexual attraction. A big no-no from me.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

What a fantastic book! Almost immediately, I was drawn into the story of the town and Eldon, the story's main character. You go from hating him to loving him, but always want him to succeed at what he's doing. Chelsea Sedoti does a great job of developing the characters and showing you both the good and bad sides of each. What an amazing writer. I'm so happy I had the opportunity to read this book!

The story line of As You Wish is fairly predictable. The fact that their are consequences to wishful thinking has been the basis of many a novel. However, I really did enjoy the book and here’s why –
1. Eldon to a large extent is an unlikeable character. He’s self-centered and doesn’t seem to be quite concerned with the lives of the people around him. This somehow made the book even more interesting. The author made no efforts to portray him as a good guy, instead calling him out for his faults and yet making the decisions that he did. After all, nobody is perfect.
2. I really related to the concept of how your decisions at a young age setting the course for your life. Being a college student myself its just occurring to me how many of my decisions have been made for me, just because I was to young to know what is right.
3. The book was light-hearted, easy to read through and quite interesting if you wanted to know how each person was affected by the wish (which I was).

If you could wish for anything at what would it be? How would your choices change if you had your whole life to think about it? Such an intriguing exploration of the wishes made and the consequences thereof.

I think I have finally accepted that Chelsea Sedoti’s books just aren’t for me. I struggled through THE HUNDRED LIES OF LIZZIE LOVETT (Review here) and while I didn’t have the exact same problems with AS YOU WISH in finishing it, the story was… uncomfortable and confusing.

I’ve seen other reviews where they talk about Eldon being an asshole. He is. He’s written that way, and I generally like unlikeable characters. Eldon was not my problem with this story. He was a kid who grew up in a very strange house and is dealing with extreme grief following his younger sister’s accident. I think all of his actions and the way he acted on page (we’re only told that he used to be an asshole who was full of himself) was justifiable. Including his belief that Norie liked him. I know this is supposed to be a moment of “oh, yeah, Eldon totally thinks EVERYONE wants him” but I actually thought Norie liked him as more than a friend, too.

There is also Queerphobic content in the book. One of the characters decides that he wants to wish his homosexuality away. I think Sedoti tried to redeem herself by saying that the feelings didn’t go away but she drops the ball when the character is not longer interested in sex/romance… which apparently makes him a sad and pitiful character that everyone should feel sorry for. As if ace/aro people don’t exist. I was deeply uncomfortable with Sedoti’s use of the “wish the gay away” because there’s also deep seeded Christianity in this book. Norie is the only character in the book who believes in God and she is also written as the best, most honest, most caring character in the entire story.

There is a suicide attempt in the book by a character that was bullied by Eldon. In fact, the last conversation the character and Eldon has is the one that pushes the character over the edge. After someone wishes him back, he returns to school and is continuously said to look like a corpse.

I think the author wasn’t sure what the message was supposed to be. Half of the book is about not playing God and the other half is about playing God. The ending was extremely weak and felt rushed. It was as if the author wasn’t sure herself how to end the book.

My final thought on this book is that it tried way too hard to be Nightvale. A secret town in the desert with a magic cave that grants wishes? Please.

I would not recommend this book.

I just found out why Chelsea Sedoti sounded SO familiar! Netgalley kindly approved me for her debut "the hundred lives of Lizzie Lovett" prior to this book.
Guess I'm really into her topics. In this case I also loved the bookcover and, true, with the title was hoping for a princess bride reference.
The premise of the book is wonderful. Anti hero main character, a place were you can make wishes on your 18th birthday and they come true. I'm sold.
Also that bookcover.
As this is supposed to be a honest review I have to admit that I haven't finished it. Eldon was not my cup of tea, I couldn't sympathize with him at any point ( and I don't care how hot he is ) so I didn't really care about him. As his friends don't him like as well, I guess I'm in good company. Maybe Sedoti was aiming at this, for the reader not to like him. Tsiolkas does this brilliantly, but Sedotis isn't a good enough writer for a stand like that.
So conclusing, I have to read way to many books to spend too much time on titles that don't flash me enough...
No hard feelings, yeah?!

PS: Please compliment the arts departement on the cover. It's a highlight!

As hard as I tried, I just couldn't get into this book and didn't finish it. I made it halfway through, but it just seemed to drag to me, and there wasn't enough going on to keep my interest piqued. The main character Eldon really bothered me, and he seemed really ungrateful for what he had. Yes he lost his sister, but he still had his parents and a good close friend and a decent life. Just because he didn't have his girl anymore, or wasn't the star of the football team, he made it seem like the whole world was out to get him. I did skip ahead to the end because I was curious what Eldon wished for...and wow I should have seen that coming. The names in the book really bothered me for some reason as well, like Eldon and Ebba the siblings, it was way too weird and simultaneously cutesy matching for me. Unfortunately, if I had a wish, it would probably be to get the time back that I spent trying to read this book.

I was blown away by the originality of this book. I was impressed by the writing and the storytelling. What if you were granted one wish when you turned 18? What would you wish for? Plenty of people have wished for beauty, cash, love, and more. Yet to every wish there is a catch....would you still wish? That is the crux of the story and it was wonderfully told. Two Thumbs WAY UP!

As you Wish by Chelsea Sedoti- I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. It is coming out in January and I had an advanced reader copy. I was very excited to receive this book and loved the idea of it. It was such an interesting premise and I'd never read a book like it.

The story takes place in a little town where everybody gets to make a wish on their 18th birthday and the wish comes true. Eldon is about to have his 18th birthday and is contemplating his wish. He knows that so many people are unhappy with how their wishes turned out and he wonders if he can help people actually be happy. There were a few details in the story that were difficult for me to wrap my head around and I'm a huge lover of magic/ fantasy. For example, Eldon is a great football player until people his age start making their wishes. What I do not understand is how his football was not affected by the older students making their wishes in the years before. Also, why would he suddenly be unable to catch a football just because other kids became great?
The middle of the book felt like it moved too slowly. II did like how the chapters were set up and the character development. I liked the ending. Overall, it was an enjoyable read. 3 stars
Thank you to Netgalley for the Advanced copy of this book.

This was great.

The writer created a real sense of place and character. I could genuinely picture the dusty town and didn't feel as if the characters were two-dimensional caricatures of high school teens.

Although the ending was predictable, in terms of Eldon's decision, it didn't lessen the enjoyment of the novel's build up in any way. And there were many moments which caught me off guard.

I'd love to use the book as a class text; I can imagine the hours of rich debate about the ethics of wishing and regrets.

As You Wish has a very interesting and promising premise. In a small desert town in Nevada, there exists a wishing cave. The residents keep it secret from the outside world, and everyone gets a wish on their 18th birthday. There are rules to wishing, of course, which is why this plot could have been so interesting.

I really feel like this was written by the wrong author. I read Sedoti's [book:The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett|25546710], in hopes that this would be better than that because there seemed to be an actual plot, but no such luck. The main character is incredibly annoying and just an asshole. It's hard to enjoy a book when you want the protagonist to go away and never come back. 2 1/2 stars

In As You Wish, we are introduced to a town with a magic cave that grants wishes to the inhabitants on their 18th birthday and to Eldon, who's about to turn 18 and has lots of angst about the wish.

The magical realism premise didn't do much for me but I loved Chelsea Sedoti's previous book, The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett so of course I requested this book as soon as I saw it.

<b> The Good: <\b>

Chelsea Sedoti's writing is as great as I remember it. You can really feel how suffocating life in a little, dusty, forgotten town in Nevada is. You can taste the sand and the utter panic of knowing how your life will turn out if you don't do something.

<b> The Bad: <\b>

I'm all for unlikable narrators, but Eldon was just such a jerk that doesn't even seem to truly learn much over the course of the book. At the end, you get the sense that he might be willing to do some actual soul searching but we're not going to see the results of that. It's not a great character arc, he barely even moves.

As many others have mentioned, the book seemed to be extremely negative about disabilities or asexuality. Yes, I get that the point of that character wishing away his gay feelings only to regret it soon after is to say that you shouldn't wish yourself away, you should embrace what makes you you, etc. But instead of coming out as an empowering story, it actually reads as "asexuality is horrible" since that's essentially how the character ends up. It's narrow minded, although I think unintentional.

Nothing happens. At the very end something does happen but for 95% of the book, it's just Eldon feeling sorry for himself and spouting off so much angst it almost made me a teenager again.

<b> The Weird </b>

The names. Oh my God, the names in this novel. For a town in the middle of the Mojave, these characters sure have strange names. Eldon, Luella, Harmon, Ebba, Merrill, Norie, Juniper, etc. One of these names in the novel would have been enough, instead everyone has strange names that I'm guessing are supposed to show the quirky side of town but instead annoyed me. I do realize this is extremely shallow of me but it just felt like dissonance. Here is this tiny town... full of people with very unusual names.

Overall, this book didn't really live up to my expectations. The writing itself is good but the story meanders and then comes to a halt in an unsatisfying manner.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.