My Unfair Godmother

Your boyfriend took you on a date to do something you have never done before. Turns out you’re going to vandalize city hall with your bad boy boyfriend and they leave to face the authorities alone when the cops appear. Not only that, but that cute guy at the police station turned out to working against you and your parents and stepfamily are disappointed in you when you didn’t even spray the paint! You were just trying to get your boyfriend and his guys to stop!

            And then a girl with pink hair and fluttery wings appears in you room later when you’re crying and tells you she is your fairy godmother. She offers you three wishes if you sign a contract and agree that whenever you lie as your wishes are being carried out, either a frog or snake will grow on your tongue or you’ll have fireworks explode around your head until you tell the truth.

            This is what happens to Tansy Miller Harris in My Unfair Godmother, written by Janette Rallison. Chrissy is the pink-haired fairy-godmother-in-training who needed an extra credit project to get into the Fairy Godmother University, so Tansy fit what she needed for her extra grade. With what happened to Tansy with her boyfriend and nearly being charged with all the damage that was his fault, being offered three wishes by a fairy who needs extra credit could make everything better. Right?

            Wrong.

            In My Unfair Godmother, Tansy makes wishes that go wrong and gets her into deeper trouble and more confusion in her new town. As in most stories where someone is offered three wishes, the first two are wasted on bringing something in that wasn’t meant to be and the second was the reverse of the first wish. Follow Tansy as her third wish sends her back to the medieval times to relive the fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin.

            I first heard of this novel from another friend in my first semester of English. Only a couple days ago I found it on the shelf and checked it out. It didn’t look that appealing at first when I read the summary. It still didn’t have a hold on me the first couple of chapters, but once the magical beings appeared in Tansy’s room things were worth reading on. There were many perks to the book, such as the usual chaos of wishes being misunderstood. I especially loved the humor and small cute moments in the story as well as the simple mistakes Chrissy makes that make big changes on Tansy.

            The twists and turns of wishes gone wrong, escaping a crazy king, evil ex-fairies, and realistic human characters makes My Unfair Godmother by Janette Rallison a fun read for your summer reading list.

            And remember, there is always more than one moral to a story. You just have to make it our own and take from it your own lesson(s) you learned.

Happy reading!

~FallenBeyondAVividDream~

Nightshade Trilogy by Andrea Cremer

Two years ago I saw my friend with a novel that had an interesting cover of a pale girl with bleach blond hair and yellow eyes. I never paid too much attention to it at first until I saw her with it for two weeks. Finally I decided to ask her about the book. I say that the title was "Nightshade". She refused to say too much in case she would spoil anything about the story. She told me it contained wolves, magic, and was a bit of a romance. I loved wolves and magic, but I'm not one for romance novels. I went home thinking about the book and didn't start reading it until I visited that same friend's house where her younger sister let me borrow a copy. I braced myself for the mushiness of what I expected in a romance novel, then I opened it up ans started to read. I was hooked till the very end, which lead to wanting to read the second and then the third books. By the end of the trilogy I was blown away and now planning on asking for all three books (Nightshade, Wolfsbane, Bloodrose) for Christmas.

For those of you who don't know, the Nightshade Trilogy written by Andrea Cremer is a story about a girl named Calla. The special thing about Calla is that she and her friends are wolves that are known as Guardians. They serve a group of witches known as the Keepers. Everything is perfect and well until our leading lady meets Shay, the new guy (they always change things don't they?). From there, things start spiraling into the questioning of the Keeper's ways, what Calla wants, and of course there is the spice and struggle of a love triangle.

Reading the first book, I had a hard time getting through some of the chapters since, as I said before, I'm not one for romance. But there was enough action (and cute male characters) to keep me reading. By the end of the first book, my mind was filled with more questions than I was when the plot started to come into shape, which lead to me reading Wolfsbane, where in my opinion has more humor and action. But I would have to say the final book in the trilogy was my favorite. In Bloodrose, the heroine comes to a harder choice in her trouble with the two guys who are in love with her, she finds out more of what she wants, and there is a great battle in the end where her allies show through (hurrah for even more action!). I especially loved about the third and final book was the way Andrea Cremer ended it. It was a good and strong ending (yes, it was happy one) that left that good savory taste in my mind that you get after you read a good book.

If you love romance, wolves, magic, action, and the fight for freedom, I recommend you read the Nightshade Trilogy. You won't be sorry.

~FallenBeyondAVividDream~