Book: As You Wish by Jackson Pearce (Genies #1)

My fiance had recommended this book to me, having told me he really liked it in his youth. I personally don't believe he remembers the book other than the fact that a girl and a jinn fall in love, due to the fact that he forgot what the book was called and that was all he could describe to me when he asked me to find it, being the book nerd I am. So I found it and he was ecstatic. I had high hopes for this book when I started because he isn't much of a reader and for him to praise a book so highly was out of the norm. Finally we picked up the book from the library!

As You Wish by Jackson Pearce is about this girl named Viola who just recently had a break up. She goes into this major depressive state and internally wishes to "be whole again" that she accidentally summons a jinn. The jinn can't go back home until she's spent all three of her wishes!

(SPOILER WARNING! START)

Viola is in class, learning about Shakespeare, feeling sorry for herself, when a mysterious guy just appears out of nowhere and freaks her out. No one else seems to be able to see him but her and so she sees him frequently throughout the day at school. When she gets home, however, he reveals himself to her and lays it all down. He's a jinn here to make her wishes come true, she had a really big wish and so he was sent.

Viola can't make heads or tails of this so she doesn't wish for the longest time until she is drunk enough to accidentally make a wish. After that though, things all go downhill... She ends up dating Aaron Moor and while she feels awesome for the first bit, she ends up breaking up with him before long because of her love for Jinn, that's what she named him, so original. He also falls for her. During her time dating Aaron, she spends her second wish to make Olly, Aaron's ex-girlfriend, okay again because she was so heartbroken over him. 

The whole Olly thing was a press, an Ifrit does something to try and force the master to make a wish. Eventually, the last press comes so that Viola will make her third wish, Jinn gets to go back to Caliban, and Viola will forget him. They try and stave off the press but are unsuccessful. The Ifrit makes it so that Lawrence, her gay best friend and ex-boyrfriend, falls in love with her, the thing she wanted most at the beginning of all this. Jinn begs her to wish him home, so that Lawrence would stay in love with her and she would be happy, but she wished for the press to be taken off of Lawrence, signifying that she chose Jinn instead. 

Her memories are veiled and Jinn receives punishment for breaking protocols, forcing him to join the Ifrit, to do presses and such. He now is free from protocols and goes back to Earth to see Viola again and he gets her to remember through stimulating her memory, speaking about them and the things they did together. She remembers and they kiss. The end.

(SPOILER WARNING! END)

I absolutely despise this book. Honestly if I were to rate this out a ten like I did in the olden days, this book would receive a four. Even Dan Poblocki and Mary Downing Hahn were better at writing than this! And I rated them around a seven, seven-and-a-half. This book is literally probably the lowest I have scored in the eight years I did book reviews on YouTube. I feel so bad for saying that I don't like this book, I don't don't like books! Heck, apparently Lisa McMann liked this book and her quote on the back doesn't even remotely describe it.

In the first ten pages, we learn all of Viola's woes and worries, no build up, no anything, it's just thrown at out faces like, "here you go! Have a pleasant rest of your day!" She's a sixteen-year-old girl who had her heart shattered because her ex-boyfriend came out as gay and she doesn't know what to do with herself. She's so desperate to belong with people that she accidentally summons a jinn! And then she's so selfish to the point where she can't decide on her wishes and so the jinn is literally stuck on Earth with her, unable to go home, until she wishes.

This book is all kinds of messed up. Viola doesn't really change as a character, stagnant nearly throughout the whole thing. Honestly she is a really boring character, and Jinn, Viola just named him his species, is no better! All he cares about in the beginning is going home to Caliban! He tries to rush her to wish and then she's all hesitant about what to wish for, which is good and all, making smart choices, but doesn't seem to care about getting Jinn home to Caliban at all. 

The way the romance is written feels kind of forced and unnatural. Jinn started caring for her four days in! Like what? And I feel so bad for Lawrence, having to deal with these two. Lawrence, the best friend turned boyfriend turned gay best friend. The fact that he is gay is shoved to the side unless it's needed for the plot and even then it's not much. Viola still treats him like her boyfriend instead of her best friend despite them being broken up and him being out. It is ridiculous! I hated how they treated Lawrence at the end though.

I am going to spoil this one thing so if you didn't read the spoiler stuff above, you have been warned! I absolutely hated what happened when Lawrence was under the press and was forced to be in love with Viola. He was kissing all up on her and everything! The Ifrit didn't give two cents that he was gay! It was just forced on him! And Jinn had the audacity to try and persuade Viola to wish him home so that the press was still in place, entrusting Lawrence to be a good boyfriend for her. And Viola even considered it! What the actual heck! Nobody cares about Lawrence! What he's feeling in this situation. I understand that they are friends and dated before, but he has to be uncomfortable. He was the one who called Viola out for treating him like he was still her boyfriend! He is gay! He likes boys! This scene is so demeaning especially since right before this scene, they were talking about how he came out to his mother and she doesn't accept him. She may even send him to a gay conversion camp is what Lawrence says. Lawrence could've just been written as a straight character who broke up with her because he loved someone else and the story still works! The fact that Lawrence was written as a gay character and then disrespected in such a fashion really aggravates me. Spoiler over.

Normally I describe the story more in depth up above, but the story isn't that great and I don't want to melt your eyes out of your sockets just yet. There's also no real important plot points, not many at least, maybe only three or four. The book was so boring, I was counting down the pages to when I would be finished! This was a really disappointing book and I am sorry I ever read it.

Thank you all for reading! Sorry about this being such a negative post, I really don't like to speak badly about books, but this one was a catastrophe. I hope my next review will be better! Please comment down below! Have you read this book before? Did you like it? I want to know why people actually liked this book, I really am curious. I hope to see you guys back for next week's post! Stay safe!