Review: Don't You Wish by Roxanne St. Claire

Title: Don't You Wish
Author: Roxanne St. Claire
Series: Stand Alone
Published By: Delacorte (July 10, 2012)
Source: ARC Provided by the Publisher
Genre: YA
My Rating: 4 Stars

Goodreads Description:
 When plain and unpopular Annie Nutter gets zapped by one of her dad's whacked-out inventions, she lands in a parallel universe where her life becomes picture-perfect. Now she's Ayla Monroe, daughter of the same mother but a different father—and she's the gorgeous, rich queen bee of her high school. 

In this universe, Ayla lives in glitzy Miami instead of dreary Pittsburgh and has beaucoup bucks, courtesy of her billionaire—if usually absent—father. Her friends hit the clubs, party backstage at concerts, and take risks that are exhilirating . . . and illegal. Here she's got a date to lose her V-card with the hottest guy she's ever seen.

But on the inside, Ayla is still Annie.

So when she's offered the chance to leave the dream life and head home to Pittsburgh, will she take it?

The choice isn't as simple as you think.

 My Review:

Annie Nutter wants what ever teenage girl wants, to be beautiful, popular, rich and the girl every guy wants and the girl every girl wants to be.

When Annie wakes up one morning and is not herself or even in her home town anymore but instead beautiful, popular rich Ayla Monroe, Annie learns as time goes by that sometimes getting everything you wished for, isn't all it has cracked up to be.

I really enjoyed this read. It was a fun read and something different from the current YA books that I have been reading lately.

I liked the whole, the grass isn't greener on the other side approach that it took. The unmasking of what being beautiful and popular really can sometimes mean in life. That just because you are on a high pedestal, doesn't mean you can't fall off, in fact it just means that the fall is even farther from the ground and will probably hurt worse.

I really liked Annie's character. She as strong and smart and brave and stood up for what she believed in and what she knew was right, even when those decisions weren't always the easy or popular ones to make. It kind of reminded me of those cheesy (but oh so true) posters that use to be in high school English classes growing up about making good choices and doing the right thing.

I really really liked Charlie too. He was such a nice fresh character. Not the usual handsome, ever girl wants him boy that we usual get in this genre. Nope, he was the nerdy physics geek. Even an outcast. I really loved that about him. It made him seem real and down to earth.

I really liked where this whole story went. There was no easy solution or fix to anything that Annie encountered and I like that even though things weren't quite what you thought they were going to be in the end, we still got a great and even believable (under the circumstances) ending.

I am starting to sound like a broken record here but truly, this was just a cute fun read that I would recommend to anyone you likes this genre and wants something new and refreshing and different.