Genre: Middle Grade
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Publishing Date: June 4, 2024
Synopsis:
All that stands between ten-year-old Beatrice and an amazing life are five wishes…and she’s got a plan to make them all come true! A magical and heartfelt adventure about grief, hope, and the power of human connection.
Beatrice Corwell has a crooked haircut, eight well-trained cats, and a she’s turning herself into a Tin Man. Once her heart is made of metal, she’ll no longer miss her beloved dead grandma, her absent dad, or her recently moved-away best friend.
While Beatrice awaits her transformation, she keeps vigil with a special doll and a handful of wishes she’s determined to make come true. With her encyclopedic knowledge, there must be a way to grant her heart’s deepest desires.
When an unusual boy named Caleb moves to town and mentions his granny’s interest in magic, Beatrice decides to enlist their help. She quickly learns, however, that spells don’t always go as planned, and witches can’t be trusted.
With the arrival of an unexpected visitor and a series of otherworldly messages, Beatrice’s plans begin to falter. Will her heart turn into metal? Will any of her wishes come true?
The Wonderful Wishes of B. is the story of a smart, quirky girl learning what she wants and what she needs—and how, sometimes, the wishes we hold dearest are granted in the most unexpected ways.
My Review:
I picked this book because of the cover. The cover is a wonderful illustration of a girl holding a cute little kitten and a bunch of cats following her. As a pet lover who has raised many cats myself, I was intrigued.
The B in the title stands for Beatrice, an almost eleven-year-old girl. The story starts with Beatrice rescuing a kitten, which warms my heart. I love the character of Beatrice. She was going through a lot in her life, yet she faced every day with so much hope. I wished her mother spent some quality time with her because she was lonely most of the time and talked to a doll that she believed would come to life so that she would feel less lonely.
Throughout the book, Beatrice had five wishes that she was hoping would come true. The wishes may be totally different from one another, but they all circle around the point of breaking her loneliness. Her love for her deceased grandmother was so beautifully expressed.
I loved most of the parts, but some scenes dissatisfied me. Some parts where the author claimed the involvement of magic were left unanswered. Overall, it’s a very good read with so many emotions at play.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5
Thank you TBR and Beyond Tours for providing me with the arc of this book.
Click here for Tour schedule to see more reviews.
Book links:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound
About the author:
Katherin Nolte received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. Her fiction has appeared in dozens of publications and won multiple awards, but it was a late-night ER visit with her four children that inspired her to write Back to the Bright Before. An Ohio native, she currently lives with her family in Iowa.
Deepireads 