Katherine Center - What You Wish For

Samantha Casey loves everything about her job as an elementary school librarian on the sunny, historic island of Galveston, Texas—the goofy kids, the stately Victorian building, the butterfly garden. But when the school suddenly loses its beloved principal, it turns out his replacement will be none other than Duncan Carpenter—a former, unrequited crush of Sam’s from many years before.
When Duncan shows up as her new boss, though, he’s nothing like the sweet teacher she once swooned over. He’s become stiff, and humorless, and obsessed with school safety. Now, with Duncan determined to destroy everything Sam loves about her school in the name of security—and turn it into nothing short of a prison—Sam has to stand up for everyone she cares about before the school that’s become her home is gone for good.

Comment: This is the third book by Katherine Center that I read. I liked the previous ones I've read, but one was definitely more appealing to me than the other. This third book, I must say, was more along the lines of the one I liked less...

In this story we meet Samantha Casey, a librarian at an elementary school in Texas, and how her life and that of those around her changes when her mentor and friend, and school director Max suddenly dies. With a new director comes change, especially in the person of Duncan Carpenter, a fellow teacher she used to work with at the school before the moved. She had a slight crush on Duncan, but he didn't seem to feel the same and seeing him start a relationship with someone else got to her in such a way she felt like putting distance between them was the best. Now he is here and she thinks she will have to battle her emotions again, but this Duncan is nothing like her funny, creative and crazy co worker of the past. Now this cynical and obnoxious man is doing things no one at the school believes is the right choice. What happened and can she help Duncan to go back to his old self?

I think this author is known for romances with cuteness and happiness and many positivism in the way, but I must say that, having now read three books, and only one being something I'd re-read if I wanted, I just could not see the appeal in this one. I think the premise was good and some elements were quite interesting and could have led to an even better development, but sadly for me, I just found the heroine unlikely and some plot choices to be rather poorly done.

Samantha is the narrator of this story and she is quirky and sweet and there's this undertone of her battling insecurities and having people who helped her see things through a different perspective. All this sounds great to read about, but I just could not really match this idea with Samantha herself... I mean, she changes schools (I suppose this might not be that easy for everyone) because of a man who seemed to not be interested in her? It certainly feels as if she is also a little juvenile at times and I could not truly connect with her.

Now, however, she has the chance to do things differently, to overcome her past indecisions and choices because she must deal with this person again. It's clear from the start that they will be a couple and that part of the plot will be centered on them dealing with past misconceptions, but now there is also the novelty of Duncan having a very different attitude than the one Samantha remembered... the reason for this isn't shared until close to the end, but I'll be honest: it's obvious why and why he is now defending things opposite the ones he demonstrated when he and Sam worked at the other school.

The romance is meant to be fun and revolving about second chances, seeing the best in life, doing positive and fun things, which are good for morale but also for a better look at mental health, and this is certainly worthy of being debated. To me, the problem was the fact that Samantha as a narrator was often juvenile sounding and I wasn't very fond of seeing the things through her perspective. Then, there were also other situations depicted and some secondary characters a little cartoonish and/or lacking personality, so the whole reading experience wasn't that great after all.

When things get closer to the end, we do learn some interesting information, we learn about some of the "secrets" to uncover, our protagonists go through some changes and lessons learned stage, and they get their HEA. I always like it when main characters in romances finally reach this goal, but in this novel, at the same time I felt glad this happened, I felt meh in regards to the big picture. This story just didn't captivate me that much that I'll remember this very fondly. Of course, other readers see details that make the story seem stronger than my descriptions, but...for me it was really meh.

Grade:5/10