How To Ditch Your Fairy

Fourteen year old Charlie lives in a town were mostly everyone has a fairy whether they believe in them or not. Her friend Rochelle has a clothes-shopping fairy which means that Rochelle will always find the most beautiful clothing at a wonderful prince. For example, Rochelle goes shopping and she finds this wonderful Chanel dress for $20(!) which would of course never happen in the real world. Charlie doesn't have a doos (awesome) fairy like Rochelle.

Charlie has a parking fairy which means she always gets the best parking spots no matter what day or what the event is for. All her friends and family love the fact that Charlie has a parking fairy - she does not. One particular person, "Danders Anders" hunts Charlie down just to lock her in his car so he can get the best parking spots. Charlie wants to get rid of her fairy no matter the cost. After hearing that she has to deny the fairy what it provides in-order get rid of the fairy she devises a plan. So she walks for 2 months before Dander Anders kidnaps her and locks her in his car insuring that he gets the best parking spots thus making her fairy gain back it's strength and stay.

That's the last straw for Charlie. Her enemy Fiorenze who has a "every-boy-likes-you fairy" comes up to Charlie and asks if she would switch fairy's with Charlie. Charlie's shocked! How could Fiorenze not want that fairy? Every boy will like you! Charlie agrees to switch her fairy with Fio. But there is a belief in Charlie's town that there is a reason you get a fairy and if you mess with the fairy there will be consequences. On her journey to lose her fairy Charlie starts to get into a lot of trouble.

I'm trying to think of a grown up reasoning of why I hate this book so much. Well not "hate'' but extremely dislike it. When I found this book at Barnes and Nobel 2 weeks ago I was excited, it looked like it would be a really good funny book to read. It turned out to be a rather dull not so funny book. There were words in the book like "doos" (awesome), "torpid" (boring), and "doxy" (terrible) that I had a hard time incorporating w/the story. Every time I came across those words it would jar me from the reading. I also found the pace of the book to go very slowly which didn't add to my already lowering opinion of the book. About 3/4 of the way the book started to pick up for me and I found it a bit more enjoyable to read. The author of this book wrote Liar but I don't know if I'll read it. I just feel let down by this book - it looked interesting and I thought it would be really funny but it just turned out to be a "blah" book.

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier. New York (c) 2008