Review: What You Wish For

What You Wish For by Katherine Center
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(3.5 Stars bumped to 4 because of the topic)

In NY Times bestselling author Katherine Center's latest outing, we meet Samantha Casey, aka Sam, an elementary school librarian who has made a great life for herself in Galveston, Texas at the Kempner School. Before that she'd been at Andrews Prep in California. She left after coming to terms with an unrequited crush on a fellow faculty member, Duncan Carpenter. Duncan was a very colorful and fun character but Samantha thought he barely noticed her. After pet sitting for him and reading a notebook of his that was left lying out in the kitchen from cover to cover, Samantha decided that she needed to leave, in part because of feelings of embarrassment over what she'd done. It's now four years later and she lives in the carriage house of her school principal and his wife, Max and Babette Kempner, and she's become firmly ensconced in their lives. They love her and she loves them and it totally infuriates their daughter Tina, who is often too busy to spend time with them. After a fateful birthday celebration as the novel opens, Kempner School is looking for a new principal. And of course, that new principal will be none other than Duncan Carpenter. Only, Sam finds he's almost unrecognizable! Gone are the Hawaiian shirts and wild humor. When he shows up in a three-piece suit and starts talking about big changes, she can't figure out what's going on. Then Babette's colorful cafeteria mural is painted gray because it's "easier to see what's going on clearly" and Sam declares war. But the problem is that she still cares for Duncan. What happened to change such a joyful man into a security-mad obsessive? In this day and age, in America, it doesn't take much to figure out why. But watching Sam and Duncan unravel the reasons was a diverting read.

I enjoyed this book more than Center's last outing. Her style of writing characters remains engaging and this is a fast, enjoyable read, considering the seriousness of the topic that forms the underpinning of the story, which is 

(spoilers)

school shootings and the trauma they cause. Though as in previous outings, sometimes I find the resolution to some of these issues to be a little too pat.

CW: school shootings, near-death injuries, PTSD

Updated 07/26/20:

I received a courtesy copy of the audiobook of What You Wish For, narrated by Therese Plummer from Macmillan Audio. The audiobook also has a fabulous audio author's note "Reading for Joy." from Katherine Center about how stories can save you. For anyone who has read a number of her books, it offers a great insight into her novels and why she writes about people overcoming trauma and hardship. "Stories are constructed like memories." So true. This generous 21-minute author discussion really adds a dimension to reading her novels.


I received a digital review copy and a paper review copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

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