Book Review: Wishing Disappoints

 The Wishing Game, by Meg Shaffer (Ballantine)

I was intrigued by the premise of an updated Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with emphasis on the plight of kids stuck in the fosterage system. As much as I was predisposed to like this book, especially in light of it earning “Best Book of the Year,” I found in it one disappointment after another.

First, the protagonist: Lucy Hart, rejected by her family in favor of her chronically ill older sister, ought to have been a sympathetic viewpoint character. She has gone from one miserable life situation to another. As a child, though, she had the gumption to run away to the island fortress (Clock Island, site of the eponymous, wildly popular children’s book series penned by the mysterious recluse, Jack Masterson) and demand to become his apprentice. Of course, this did not go well, although she, Jack, and gifted cover artist Hugo have never forgotten one another. At the opening of the book, Lucy is working at a dead-end job as a teacher’s aide. She’s barely able to make rent, let alone provide a suitable home for Christopher, the foster kid she’s determined to adopt. Herein lies my initial and enduring inability to connect with Lucy. She seems to be no more emotionally mature than an average adolescent, even more so when she decides that the only solution to her life problems is to enter and win a fabulous prize offered by Jack, the only copy of his unpublished next Clock Island novel. Her wish appears to be coming true when she is selected as a finalist and travels to Clock Island.

Aside from one writer to another: One copy?? Give me a break! No agent, editor, publisher, publicist, beta reader, copy editor, proofreader, online writers group, professional association, or trusted friend (looking at you, Hugo) would ever allow such irresponsibility as printing out one copy and then destroying all the files of the previous versions (or the equivalent typewritten manuscripts). (At the beginning of my writing career, I typed out drafts (at least three) with carbon paper and kept them all, using them as show and tell for school presentations.)

Second aside: many aspects of this novel read as if written by someone ignorant of the publishing business, yet Jack is a many-times-over best seller, supposedly with an agent and editor with whom he’s had a long relationship. It didn’t take long for me to suspect that the naïveté was on the part of this book’s author. I confess to a prejudice against “Creative Writing” folks who all too often have no clue about how genre storytelling works. I can’t think of another explanation for the prevailing ignorance.

These issues paled beside the huge red flags. Here are but a few: Lucy decides that the key to happiness is to adopt a kid. Other than the limited, structured interactions with students her job, she has no experience with parenting. Her interactions with Christopher come across as sugar-coated wish fulfillment (except for a few small afterthought details in the last chapter). There’s no chemistry between the two of them; their stereotyped interactions could have come straight out of 1950s family sitcoms. As Lucy’s history is revealed, it’s clear that because she felt unloved as a child, her solution is to shower another child with the love she never received. Not to resolve her own issues, not to learn to love (and forgive) herself, not to let go of her resentment of her sister and parents.

Second huge red flag: Lucy goes from one inappropriate romantic relationship to another. Her longtime, emotionally abusive, and much older boyfriend kept her dependent, off-balance, and doubting her self-worth. Never does she address the lingering trauma other than to “do a geographic” and leave town. She’s had a crush on Hugo since meeting him as a child, he being quite a few years older then, and neither of them sees anything untoward about being attracted to each other. Her relationship with elderly Jack is bizarre. In the age of #MeToo and better understanding of how women are manipulated, exploited, and gaslit, I’m appalled at how much of Lucy’s victimhood is rationalized, unexamined, and lacking in feminist context. Neither Hugo nor Jack is outwardly abusive, but the inherent imbalance in power in each of these relationships means there can be no true consent. Lucy has not become empowered by escaping her previous domineering romance, she has only run away. She is just as vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation as ever.

These issues are far less significant than the crucial problem: Lucy has no agency as a character. She never rises to the occasion to solve her own problems. Someone else, whether Hugo, Jack, or her co-worker, always steps in to fix things for her. In the end, after she fails to win the contest, Jack gives her the island (so she and Christopher have a place to live), Hugo gives her a painting worth a small fortune, and Jack’s attorney takes over the legalities of Christopher’s adoption.

The contest to win the unpublished manuscript includes a series of riddles, which were fun, but not amusing enough to cancel the serious issues I’ve raised above. Anyone looking for a story in which a character wrestles with their inner demons and rises above them, learns to act like an adult, and takes control over their destiny through their own efforts will likely be as disappointed as I was.