Wishless - Sibylla Nash

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Author: Sibylla Nash

Genre: Middle-grade fiction.
Rating: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: An interesting children’s fairy story but ends on a cliffhanger. Wish I had known this before requesting it because I don't like cliffhangers. 😟

Story:
Twelve year old Max (short for Maxine) is the last fairy godmother in her realm. The fairy realm seems to be in some kind of trouble, but no adult fairy is revealing what exactly is the problem except that the number of fairies seems to be dwindling. Max finds out that granting the ‘one true wish’ of a human girl named Amara might be the solution to the problem. So she travels to the human realm. But things here turn out much more dangerous than she had anticipated and she soon finds herself battling not just communication errors with Amara and her cat, but also a grave danger from some mysterious force who is capturing and annihilating fairies.
The story is written in the limited third person pov of Max.


If I were a child, I would have been mighty satisfied with this book. It had a lot of elements that children will enjoy – adventure, danger, brave protagonists, larger-than-life villains. There are also plenty of magical add-ons in the plot to add the perfect touch of fantasy. The fairy realm is described beautifully. There’s also a talking cat to add icing to the cake.

Though a simple children’s fairy story at first glance, the book covers quite a few dark themes such as abuse of power, the difference between wants and needs, the importance of diligent work, and knowing your limits. The writing is fairly simplistic and will keep children engaged.

I loved discovering that Max isn’t portrayed as a typical Disney-style fairy with blonde hair and blue eyes. Au contraire! She has dark eyes and hair she ties in cornrows. (See the adorable cover pic for a glimpse of Max and her cute little fairy wings! 😍😍)

At the same time, the parent in me wasn’t happy to see that most of the main protagonists are reckless, disregard rules and authority, and jump into dangerous situations without adult help. Max at least has the excuse of having magical powers so she could be excused of some naiveté. But Amara and her group of friends are too clichéd. The plot also goes into too many coincidences, which is common in children’s fiction but not to this extent.

Of course, quite a few of the plot tracks remain unclosed as the book is the first of a series and ends on a big cliffhanger. As such, I don’t know how many plot holes were there by mistake and how many will be plugged in the sequel.

I think the book will work fairly well for the tween age group, so 7 to 12 years would be a nice age range. Amazon suggests the age range as 8-13 years, so I am not that far off. 😉

All in all, this book is a strange combination of sweet and dark. Children who enjoy dark fantasy might like this one, as long as they are okay with waiting for the second ‘Wishless’ book to know what happens next.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through ‘StoryOrigin’ and these are my honest thoughts about it.

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