Wish Me Dead by Helen Grant
May. 19th, 2011 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
The funny thing is I never even meant the first one.
Now I bitterly regret visiting the cursed witch’s house, deep in the middle of the forest. It’s where I made my wishes.
I wished Kara Klein dead.
It came true.
I wished for the most gorgeous boy in town to finally notice me.
It came true.
I wished to be rid of the poisonous busybody who destroyed my family.
It came true.
I didn’t mean for this to happen. Not me, Steffi Nett, the shy one who never says anything. But as the body count increases with every wish I make … What else could it be?
Steffi, her boyfriend Timo and friends, Max, Izabela, Jocken and Hanna live in the quiet German town of Bad Münstereifel. Painfully shy, Steffi is resigned to having to work in the family bakery, even though she really wants to be a singer. When Max suggests spending Walpurgis night at the abandoned house of Rote Gerd (a legendary witch who was burned alive centuries earlier by villagers who suspected her of kidnapping local children) to try and raise her ghost, Steffi reluctantly goes along.
There they find a box filled with wishes made to the witch. Steffi’s persuaded to write one wishing for the death of Kara Klein (an elderly German folk singer and local celebrity). When Kara subsequently dies they decide to repeat the experiment – this time with all of them making their own wishes. Steffi wishes for €500 and again, it comes true. In fact, every wish she makes, comes true. But when the wishes take a sinister turn and more deaths strike close to Steffi’s family, she begins to question whether it’s right to be given everything she wants – and whether she really wants what she’s asking for.
Helen Grant’s third novel is a thriller with supernatural overtones and the message that you should be careful what you wish for.
Steffi is a well-drawn character and has a strong first person voice that conveys her confusion and dilemma at having her wishes come true. Because she’s so shy, it’s difficult to empathise with her at times, particularly her passivity at the developing relationship between Timo and Izabela. However she does grow as the story progresses and the open ending reflects the choices available to her, which I liked.
The story itself though is slow to develop, lacks tension and unfolds in a predictable way – including the ‘twist’ at the end, which Grant sign-posts too early and which relies on a soap opera motivation. At times Steffi’s persistent refusal to believe in the power of the wishes in spite of the evidence is irritating and a conversation between her and Julius (who wants her to sing for his band) relies too heavily on her deliberate misinterpretation.
All in all, it’s not a bad book and I enjoyed the small town German setting but my problems with it meant that my attention kept wandering and I never really cared enough about Steffi or the central mystery.
The Verdict:
Helen Grant’s thriller has creepy supernatural overtones and a good small town German setting, but the main character (though well written) was too passive for my taste and the plot itself was too slow and too predictable in developing. I would read more of Grant’s work, but this book didn’t do it for me.
WISH ME DEAD is released in the UK on 2nd June 2011. Thanks to Penguin for the ARC of this book.
The funny thing is I never even meant the first one.
Now I bitterly regret visiting the cursed witch’s house, deep in the middle of the forest. It’s where I made my wishes.
I wished Kara Klein dead.
It came true.
I wished for the most gorgeous boy in town to finally notice me.
It came true.
I wished to be rid of the poisonous busybody who destroyed my family.
It came true.
I didn’t mean for this to happen. Not me, Steffi Nett, the shy one who never says anything. But as the body count increases with every wish I make … What else could it be?
Steffi, her boyfriend Timo and friends, Max, Izabela, Jocken and Hanna live in the quiet German town of Bad Münstereifel. Painfully shy, Steffi is resigned to having to work in the family bakery, even though she really wants to be a singer. When Max suggests spending Walpurgis night at the abandoned house of Rote Gerd (a legendary witch who was burned alive centuries earlier by villagers who suspected her of kidnapping local children) to try and raise her ghost, Steffi reluctantly goes along.
There they find a box filled with wishes made to the witch. Steffi’s persuaded to write one wishing for the death of Kara Klein (an elderly German folk singer and local celebrity). When Kara subsequently dies they decide to repeat the experiment – this time with all of them making their own wishes. Steffi wishes for €500 and again, it comes true. In fact, every wish she makes, comes true. But when the wishes take a sinister turn and more deaths strike close to Steffi’s family, she begins to question whether it’s right to be given everything she wants – and whether she really wants what she’s asking for.
Helen Grant’s third novel is a thriller with supernatural overtones and the message that you should be careful what you wish for.
Steffi is a well-drawn character and has a strong first person voice that conveys her confusion and dilemma at having her wishes come true. Because she’s so shy, it’s difficult to empathise with her at times, particularly her passivity at the developing relationship between Timo and Izabela. However she does grow as the story progresses and the open ending reflects the choices available to her, which I liked.
The story itself though is slow to develop, lacks tension and unfolds in a predictable way – including the ‘twist’ at the end, which Grant sign-posts too early and which relies on a soap opera motivation. At times Steffi’s persistent refusal to believe in the power of the wishes in spite of the evidence is irritating and a conversation between her and Julius (who wants her to sing for his band) relies too heavily on her deliberate misinterpretation.
All in all, it’s not a bad book and I enjoyed the small town German setting but my problems with it meant that my attention kept wandering and I never really cared enough about Steffi or the central mystery.
The Verdict:
Helen Grant’s thriller has creepy supernatural overtones and a good small town German setting, but the main character (though well written) was too passive for my taste and the plot itself was too slow and too predictable in developing. I would read more of Grant’s work, but this book didn’t do it for me.
WISH ME DEAD is released in the UK on 2nd June 2011. Thanks to Penguin for the ARC of this book.
