jbronderbookreviews

Iwishacana/Acanawishi by Larissa Hinton

4 stars

(Excerpt from Goodreads) Where rules are meant to be broken
Anissa is constantly on the run from the police and can’t seem to stay out of trouble.

Secrets are meant to be kept
Until Anissa hides Florence in her bedroom and her mother finds out. There’s only one thing left to do: Send her to Juvenile Cop Camp to erase all of her crimes on her record.

And everything is not what it seems
There’s only one problem: Anissa is innocent.
Welcome to Iwishacana.

Iwishacana is an alternate to our world that is powered by wishes. Basically what you wish for is yours. Anissa lives in both our world and Iwishacana. It seems that she is in trouble in Iwishacana, when the story starts, she is on the run from the police. She mentions that there are drawbacks to wishing but it is not very clear what.

Anissa escapes the police just to come home to get into a fight with her mother about getting into trouble all the time. Not listening to her mother, she goes to Iwishacana and takes an art class there. She then looses a bet and is stuck with Florence, a spoilt guy from Iwishacana. She then sneaks out to go to a party. When caught she is sent to Iwishacana boot camp for criminals.

While there, we learn that Anissa has been framed for the crimes she is charged with. All people in Iwishacana have an inability to wish for certain things except Anissa. Someone has hacked Anissa’s ability and is using it to their advantage. Now Anissa needs to stop that person to clear her name and get out of criminal boot camp.

I really like the concept behind this story. It’s a fresh new idea that has a lot of potential. I can see this easily becoming a series.

Having said that, I will admit that I would have liked more background on Iwishacna. I felt a little lost hitting the ground running with little to go on. I got the basic idea but would have liked to learn more about it, the ground rules behind wishing, and such. I also was a touch confused about the bet that got Anissa stuck with Florence. I might have miss read it, but couldn’t find what happened.

Beyond that, this is a great story that has great potential. This is one to add to your young adult collection.

I received this story from author in a giveaway.