ReviewWishful Thinking by Alezandra Bullen

If you could wish for a different life, would you? What if that life changed everything you thought was real?

Adopted as a baby, Hazel Snow has always been alone. She's never belonged anywhere--and has always yearned to know the truth about where she comes from. So when she receives three stunning, enchanted dresses--each with the power to grant one wish--Hazel wishes to k...moreIf you could wish for a different life, would you? What if that life changed everything you thought was real? 

Adopted as a baby, Hazel Snow has always been alone. She's never belonged anywhere--and has always yearned to know the truth about where she comes from. So when she receives three stunning, enchanted dresses--each with the power to grant one wish--Hazel wishes to know her mother. Transported to a time and place she couldn't have imagined, Hazel finds herself living an alternate life--a life with the mother she never knew. 

Over the course of one amazing, miraculous summer, Hazel finds her home, falls in love, and forms an unexpected friendship. But will her search to uncover her past forever alter her future?(Publisher's summary from Goodreads)

I doubt that any one of us hasn’t made a wish about changing something in our lives ... a do over of sorts. I know I have, but in making that wish, rarely do we stop and think about how it would impact other life events, people or even the very essences of who we are. In Alexandra Bullen’s Wishful Thinking, a sequel to her first book Wish, Bullen explores the question, “If you could change your life would you?” The results of this exploration is a heart wrenching story with a main character who grows quite a lot from her experience and an ending that left me feeling that gaining a new perspective can truly make a difference.

Although I did not read Wish, this did not hindered my enjoyment of her sequel. One of the things that I really liked about Wishful Thinking is it’s very much a character driven story. I had a great deal of empathy for Hazel, whose life has always been difficult. From the beginning Bullen carefully develops how lonely Hazel’s life has been. Shuffled around between her step-father, a struggling alcoholic and several foster homes after her adopted mother dies when she is two, Hazel knows better than to get her hopes up because life always has a way of letting her down. But the biggest let down comes when Hazel goes looking for her birth mother only to find out that she has just died. Shattered, Hazel once again sees life as unfair and wishes she had gotten to the chance to know her mother first, and thanks to a magical dress Hazel finds herself transported to Martha’s Vineyard before her birth and takes up residence with the woman she thinks is her mother. 

While Wishful Thinking requires a suspension of disbelief, the elements in the plot such as the magical dresses, and Hazel’s ability to make three wishes was a small hiccup and easily overlooked if you are like me and love a good fairy tale.  The real story is how Hazel learns to let go of her past, allow people to into her life and to care about those around her without fear of disappointment. Wishful Thinking also has a few little plot twists. One was pretty obvious, but did not in any way distract from my enjoyment, and in some ways even heightened it. Others twists were important to Hazel’s discovery of herself and the vehicle that gives her and the reader hope that Hazel’s future will be better. 

Wishful Thinking is a charming and magical tale of self discovery with likable characters, a great setting, and it leaves the reader hopeful and satisfied.

 Source: Received ARC copy from publisher