Wishful Thinking by Kamy Wicoff
Wishful Thinking
Synopsis:
Jennifer Sharpe is a divorced mother of two with a problem just about any working parent can relate to: her boss expects her to work as though she doesn t have children, and her children want her to care for them as though she doesn t have a boss. But when, through a fateful coincidence, a brilliant physicist comes into possession of Jennifer's phone and decides to play fairy godmother, installing a miraculous time-travel app called Wishful Thinking, Jennifer suddenly finds herself in possession of what seems like the answer to the impossible dream of having it all: an app that lets her be in more than one place at the same time. With the app, Jennifer goes quickly from zero to hero in every part of her life: she is super-worker, the last to leave her office every night; she is super-mom, the first to arrive at pickup every afternoon; and she even becomes super-girlfriend, dating a musician who thinks she has unlimited childcare and a flexible job. But Jennifer soon finds herself facing questions that adding more hours to her day can't answer. Why does she feel busier and more harried than ever? Is she aging faster than everyone around her? How can she be a good worker, mother, and partner when she can't be honest with anybody in her life? And most important, when choosing to be with your children, at work, or with your partner doesn't involve sacrifice, do those choices lose their meaning? Wishful Thinking is a modern-day fairy tale in which one woman learns to overcome the challenges and appreciate the joys of living life in real time.
Review:
Whishful Thinking. This was an okay read. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. I didn't care for the main character which didn't help, but it was okay.
Jennifer is divorced, taking care of her two kids and trying to work the long hours needed at her job. Her ex wasn't very reliable for a long time, but now he seems to want to be in their kids lives more. He wants to file for more custody, especially since they are home with a sitter most of the time. Her boss also expects her to put in long hours to try and get her dream plan to come to fruition a year earlier than planned. She has a lot to do and not enough time to do it.
When she loses her phone one day she finds it again with a mysterious new app on it that claims to let her be in two places at once kind of. She was supposed to miss her sons guitar recital, but even though she doesn't believe this new app will really let her be in two places at the same time she gives it a try. When she sees that it actually works, that she could be at her sons recital, then get sent back in time to when she left to finish off her work day she thinks this is the perfect thing for her. With the help of her crazy physicist neighbour who made the app she can have everything. She is only supposed to use it a few times a week. After all it has not been testes significantly and they wouldn't want anything to happen to Jennifer. Her bff is also in the loop as she is a doctor and can keep an eye on her health.
Quickly Jennifer finds that only time jumping a twice a week is not enough. She can have it all, if only she re-lives the same times two or three times in a day. It sounds horrible really. She ends up doing way more, but never really enjoying it.
It is one of those be careful what you wish for type of situations. It looks like it would be great to have many more hours in a day, but it is not really. You still are chasing time and it is not something I would really want. Sure it would be nice at times to have more hours in the day, but there aren't so you make do with what you have.
So through it all I just found Jennifer a bit..she just gets a bit too crazy for me. I didn't really care for her and never felt for her and her situation. I really thought sure, let your ex have the kids a few days a week after school. You can work, he can see them, win win win. Only she won't let that happen. Maybe if we would have seen the ex and how bad he was before it would have been different, but as it is I just felt like that would have been a good solution to some of your problems. Yes you would miss time with your kids, but you already do. As the ex pointed out they are not even with her, so why not let them be with him? I didn't care for it. I know a lot of working parents would probably love an app like this to let them not miss anything with their kids, but the way she was written I just didn't care for Jennifer.
My one real issue with the book though is near the end. **spoiler alert** Jennifer finally realizes that she cannot keep time jumping forever, that she will age so much faster since she is living so many more hours that everyone else. She realizes she will end up missing more if she keeps up her addiction so she quits cold turkey. No more time jumps. Only they need to get some information that is locked up and they cannot get to it. It turns into this weird crime story, stop the bad guys in a humorous way kind of thing. It was odd as that storyline seemed to come out of nowhere. Sure I guess it is kind of set up with the boss, but it was just like alright zany fun take the bad guy down time. I didn't like it. Really I didn't like that they needed to get he documents to catch the bad guy, but couldn't figure out how to get them. So what do they do? Use the app once again to pop in and out of where they needed to be and yey problem solved. I really didn't like that. Instead of figuring out a way to get what they needed by themselves it is just like oh we will just time jump again. I know we just said no more, but just once more couldn't hurt right? Ugh. I can just see if they didn't destroy the app that she would just start using every once and a while, only when she really needed it mind you, and then we would be right back where we were in the middle of the book. It annoyed me.
Overall an alright read, but because I never liked the main character it didn't win me over. The end also annoyed me so not my favorite, but not the worst thing either.
Rating: ★ ★1/2
Jennifer is divorced, taking care of her two kids and trying to work the long hours needed at her job. Her ex wasn't very reliable for a long time, but now he seems to want to be in their kids lives more. He wants to file for more custody, especially since they are home with a sitter most of the time. Her boss also expects her to put in long hours to try and get her dream plan to come to fruition a year earlier than planned. She has a lot to do and not enough time to do it.
When she loses her phone one day she finds it again with a mysterious new app on it that claims to let her be in two places at once kind of. She was supposed to miss her sons guitar recital, but even though she doesn't believe this new app will really let her be in two places at the same time she gives it a try. When she sees that it actually works, that she could be at her sons recital, then get sent back in time to when she left to finish off her work day she thinks this is the perfect thing for her. With the help of her crazy physicist neighbour who made the app she can have everything. She is only supposed to use it a few times a week. After all it has not been testes significantly and they wouldn't want anything to happen to Jennifer. Her bff is also in the loop as she is a doctor and can keep an eye on her health.
Quickly Jennifer finds that only time jumping a twice a week is not enough. She can have it all, if only she re-lives the same times two or three times in a day. It sounds horrible really. She ends up doing way more, but never really enjoying it.
"It was not lost on Jennifer that, even with the app, she was still chasing the moment when she could finally be in the moment, and it was a moment that never seemed to arrive."
It is one of those be careful what you wish for type of situations. It looks like it would be great to have many more hours in a day, but it is not really. You still are chasing time and it is not something I would really want. Sure it would be nice at times to have more hours in the day, but there aren't so you make do with what you have.
So through it all I just found Jennifer a bit..she just gets a bit too crazy for me. I didn't really care for her and never felt for her and her situation. I really thought sure, let your ex have the kids a few days a week after school. You can work, he can see them, win win win. Only she won't let that happen. Maybe if we would have seen the ex and how bad he was before it would have been different, but as it is I just felt like that would have been a good solution to some of your problems. Yes you would miss time with your kids, but you already do. As the ex pointed out they are not even with her, so why not let them be with him? I didn't care for it. I know a lot of working parents would probably love an app like this to let them not miss anything with their kids, but the way she was written I just didn't care for Jennifer.
My one real issue with the book though is near the end. **spoiler alert** Jennifer finally realizes that she cannot keep time jumping forever, that she will age so much faster since she is living so many more hours that everyone else. She realizes she will end up missing more if she keeps up her addiction so she quits cold turkey. No more time jumps. Only they need to get some information that is locked up and they cannot get to it. It turns into this weird crime story, stop the bad guys in a humorous way kind of thing. It was odd as that storyline seemed to come out of nowhere. Sure I guess it is kind of set up with the boss, but it was just like alright zany fun take the bad guy down time. I didn't like it. Really I didn't like that they needed to get he documents to catch the bad guy, but couldn't figure out how to get them. So what do they do? Use the app once again to pop in and out of where they needed to be and yey problem solved. I really didn't like that. Instead of figuring out a way to get what they needed by themselves it is just like oh we will just time jump again. I know we just said no more, but just once more couldn't hurt right? Ugh. I can just see if they didn't destroy the app that she would just start using every once and a while, only when she really needed it mind you, and then we would be right back where we were in the middle of the book. It annoyed me.
Overall an alright read, but because I never liked the main character it didn't win me over. The end also annoyed me so not my favorite, but not the worst thing either.
Rating: ★ ★1/2
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