Beware What You Wish
1 journaler for this copy...
(I took care to give no obvious spoilers about the story)
Title: Beware what you wish (on Librarything, Goodreads, Bookmeter (読書メーター))
Author: Diana G. Gallagher
Language: English
Series: Charmed novels #10
Reviews of other books in this series (up till now):
Charmed #6 - Schaduw van de sfinx (Carla Jablonski) (book #16 in the English series)
Charmed #8 - The legacy of Merlin (Eloise Flood)
Format of publication: paperback
Number of pages: 179
Publisher: Pocket Pulse, published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Year published: original 2001, my edition 2001
ISBN number: 0743412389
Topics: Charmed, wishes
Reason for reading: I'm re-reading a few Charmed books.
Recommended: If you liked the tv-series, but it's an average story. I liked "The legacy of Merlin" better.
Target age group: 14+ (I read this book for the first time when I just turned 15, though I was already watching the series before that).
Buy / Borrow / Bypass: Borrow.
Short summary:
Phoebe starts to get more and more visions of bad things that are going to happen to people, but a lot of the visions are also of really small things like a papercut. As Phoebe gets more tired each time, the three sisters try to figure out what's happening.
Back cover text:
While photographin Stephen Tremaine, a wealthy businessman running for public office, Prue notices an ancient stone statue from South America. Then, the next morning, Prue, Piper, and Phoebe are disturbed by the number of tragic accidents in the news. Wishing she could foresee more calamities in order to prevent them, Phoebe suddenly gets dizzy, but the feeling passes.
Soon Phoebe is having more visions than she can handle - and the sisters can't keep up with the impending accidents and disasters. Then a terrible vision sends the Halliwells to a charity carnival, where Tremaine will face his opponent. The Charmed Ones must summon the Power of Three to avert a tragedy and save San Fransisco - if they can find out which disaster to stop!
First paragraph:
Startling, dark eyes caught Prue Halliwell off guard as she stepped through heavy wooden doors into a foyer lit by flickering wall sconces. This was not what she had expected when Stephen Tremaine's housekeeper had directed her into the library to wait.
Her sister Piper's warning over breakfast that morning rushed to mind. "Be careful, Prue. I've heard that guy is tougher than a stale cookie and incredibly vain."
Review:
Story:
The Charmed media tie-in books are meant to read as "another Charmed episode", which is exactly what this book achieves. The story takes place in season 3, where Prue has just started to work as a freelance photographer, Piper and Leo have just gotten permission from the Powers That Be to have a relationship (but Leo is absent a lot of the time) and Phoebe doesn't have her leviation power under control yet.
The idea for the story is interesting: what would happen if accidental wishes really came true? But of course the wishes don't exactly come true in the preferred/expected way. Phoebe's wish was the main point in this story and it was nicely written - her visions (and the effects) got stronger and more frequent bit by bit, so that it didn't seem to be caused by any outside influence.
The solution wasn't very long-winded, but the book is quite short and there should be a happy ending, of course.
It's an enjoyable Charmed story, but the fact that it's based around two rivaling politicians, makes it fit less well into the whole series, as there's hardly any political commentary when you're just watching the tv episodes.
Writing style:
The author assumes the reader already knows the characters, so there's only minimal information about them (mostly so the reader knows in which part of the tv series this story takes place).
The descriptions of the settings are minimal as well, but that's not very much of a problem if you've seen the tv series (and everything takes place in the "modern day", so it's not too difficult to imagine the settings).
Otherwise, there's a nice variation between descriptions and dialogues. The author switches between different characters' viewpoints, even sometimes to the enemy's viewpoint (which actually made the story a bit predictable for the reader).
Spelling errors/typos:
- page 67:
Phoebe's power to divert [...] =
Prue's power to divert [...]
Cover:
There's a photo of Piper, Phoebe and Prue on the cover (separate photos of them put together on the computer) with a ferris wheel in the background. The sky/background is a dark red sky (black/brown/red).
Conclusion:
Beware what you wish for, but also: take a chance at anything that comes along and looks promising!
Rereadability:
Yes, I've read it more often already. The story is quite obvious once you've read it, though, so it actually gets less interesting with each re-read.
Related links:
- What is canned bread? (something they're eating in this book)
Title: Beware what you wish (on Librarything, Goodreads, Bookmeter (読書メーター))
Author: Diana G. Gallagher
Language: English
Series: Charmed novels #10
Reviews of other books in this series (up till now):
Charmed #6 - Schaduw van de sfinx (Carla Jablonski) (book #16 in the English series)
Charmed #8 - The legacy of Merlin (Eloise Flood)
Format of publication: paperback
Number of pages: 179
Publisher: Pocket Pulse, published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Year published: original 2001, my edition 2001
ISBN number: 0743412389
Topics: Charmed, wishes
Reason for reading: I'm re-reading a few Charmed books.
Recommended: If you liked the tv-series, but it's an average story. I liked "The legacy of Merlin" better.
Target age group: 14+ (I read this book for the first time when I just turned 15, though I was already watching the series before that).
Buy / Borrow / Bypass: Borrow.
Short summary:
Phoebe starts to get more and more visions of bad things that are going to happen to people, but a lot of the visions are also of really small things like a papercut. As Phoebe gets more tired each time, the three sisters try to figure out what's happening.
Back cover text:
While photographin Stephen Tremaine, a wealthy businessman running for public office, Prue notices an ancient stone statue from South America. Then, the next morning, Prue, Piper, and Phoebe are disturbed by the number of tragic accidents in the news. Wishing she could foresee more calamities in order to prevent them, Phoebe suddenly gets dizzy, but the feeling passes.
Soon Phoebe is having more visions than she can handle - and the sisters can't keep up with the impending accidents and disasters. Then a terrible vision sends the Halliwells to a charity carnival, where Tremaine will face his opponent. The Charmed Ones must summon the Power of Three to avert a tragedy and save San Fransisco - if they can find out which disaster to stop!
First paragraph:
Startling, dark eyes caught Prue Halliwell off guard as she stepped through heavy wooden doors into a foyer lit by flickering wall sconces. This was not what she had expected when Stephen Tremaine's housekeeper had directed her into the library to wait.
Her sister Piper's warning over breakfast that morning rushed to mind. "Be careful, Prue. I've heard that guy is tougher than a stale cookie and incredibly vain."
Review:
Story:
The Charmed media tie-in books are meant to read as "another Charmed episode", which is exactly what this book achieves. The story takes place in season 3, where Prue has just started to work as a freelance photographer, Piper and Leo have just gotten permission from the Powers That Be to have a relationship (but Leo is absent a lot of the time) and Phoebe doesn't have her leviation power under control yet.
The idea for the story is interesting: what would happen if accidental wishes really came true? But of course the wishes don't exactly come true in the preferred/expected way. Phoebe's wish was the main point in this story and it was nicely written - her visions (and the effects) got stronger and more frequent bit by bit, so that it didn't seem to be caused by any outside influence.
The solution wasn't very long-winded, but the book is quite short and there should be a happy ending, of course.
It's an enjoyable Charmed story, but the fact that it's based around two rivaling politicians, makes it fit less well into the whole series, as there's hardly any political commentary when you're just watching the tv episodes.
Writing style:
The author assumes the reader already knows the characters, so there's only minimal information about them (mostly so the reader knows in which part of the tv series this story takes place).
The descriptions of the settings are minimal as well, but that's not very much of a problem if you've seen the tv series (and everything takes place in the "modern day", so it's not too difficult to imagine the settings).
Otherwise, there's a nice variation between descriptions and dialogues. The author switches between different characters' viewpoints, even sometimes to the enemy's viewpoint (which actually made the story a bit predictable for the reader).
Spelling errors/typos:
- page 67:
Phoebe's power to divert [...] =
Prue's power to divert [...]
Cover:
There's a photo of Piper, Phoebe and Prue on the cover (separate photos of them put together on the computer) with a ferris wheel in the background. The sky/background is a dark red sky (black/brown/red).
Conclusion:
Beware what you wish for, but also: take a chance at anything that comes along and looks promising!
Rereadability:
Yes, I've read it more often already. The story is quite obvious once you've read it, though, so it actually gets less interesting with each re-read.
Related links:
- What is canned bread? (something they're eating in this book)
