Monday, December 21, 2009

Book Review- How to Ditch Your Fairy

I just finished reading How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier.

From the inside cover:

Welcome to New Avalon, where everyone has a personal fairy. Though invisible to the naked eye, a personal fairy-- like a specialized good luck charm-- is vital to a person's success.  It might determine whether you make a sports team, pass a class, or   find that perfect outfit. But for fourteen-year-old Charlie, having a Parking Fairy is worse than having nothing at all--especially when the school bully carts her around like his own personal parking pass.

Enter: The Plan. At first, teaming up with arch-enemy Fiorenze (who has an all-the-boys-like-you fairy), seems like a great idea. But when Charlie unexpectedly gets her heart's desire, it isn't at all what she thought it would be, and she'll have resort to extraordinary measures to set things right.

From the author of the award-winning Magic or Madness trilogy, How to Ditch Your Fairy is a delightful story of  friendship, fairies, and figuring out how to make your own magic.

It took me quite awhile to get into this story.  The made-up language was hard for me to enjoy at first and I didn't like having to guess what some words meant (Clue--the back of the book has a glossary, which I only found out about when I got to the end of the book.  I wish I had known this sooner).  But about halfway through the book, it became easier to read, and I enjoyed it more.

I liked the characters and I liked the setting.  Charlie seemed like a normal teenager--well as normal as one can be in such a strict setting with fairies.  I thought Rochelle seemed sweet (and I would love her shopping fairy!) And I just plain felt bad for Fiorenze.  She seemed to have the best fairy of all, but it was really a curse.  And the idea of a sports school where everything is so strict in a city where everyone believes they live in the best city in the world is intriguing yet creepy at the same time. 

I enjoyed the plot of the story.  The idea of almost everyone having their own personal fairy is a new one, and wouldn't that be great if it happened in real life?!?! (I would love a book reading fairy where I could fly through books). 

I gave this book a rating of 3.5/5.

This book fulfilled an item in the following challenge:
Paranormal 999 Challenge: Fae/Fairy

*FTC Disclosure: I traded this book with a friend

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the tip about the glossary!

    Sounds like a fun book, I'll have to look for it on my next trip to the library.

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