If you had the chance to make three wishes to change your life, would you take it? What if we told you those three wishes might change everything? In As You Wish by Nashae Jones, Birdie is about to learn that wishing is dangerous business.
All Birdie wants is a totally normal eighth grade experience. With an anxious, overprotective mom and less than popular image at school, Birdie is eager to make this her year by reinventing herself and rehabbing her image. After seeing a fellow classmate shed her formerly dorky image by dating a basketball player, Birdie decides that she’s ready to find a boyfriend of her own. And since she and Deve (her neighbor and bestie) always do everything together, she offers to help him find a girlfriend, too. Except, Deve isn’t on board with Birdie’s plan. In fact, it causes a fight between them that ends with Deve asking for a friend break, leaving Birdie heartbroken and confused, wishing she could make things right.
When Nancy, the new girl at school, shows up claiming to be Anansi, a West African god who owes Birdie three wishes, Birdie shoves her hesitation aside and takes the chance to make things right again. But Anansi is a trickster god who thrives on chaos, and Birdie’s wishes don’t come true exactly the way she hoped. After wishing that Deve was never mad at her, she wakes up the next day to discover that Deve and her never became friends at all and that her wishes have unexpected ripple effects she never imagined.
With each wish Birdie makes, things get more tangled and messy, but one thing becomes clear – her life is already pretty amazing the way it is, and she’d do anything to get back to it (and maybe the boy she was wishing for has been there all along.)
A girl learns the hard way to be careful what she wishes for in this sweet and funny middle grade rom-com featuring a chaos-loving West African trickster god.
Birdie has big plans for eighth grade. This is the year that she gets a boyfriend, and since she and her best friend, Deve, do everything together, it makes sense that Deve will get a girlfriend. This is the kind of math Birdie doesn’t find intimidating—it’s Eighth Grade 101. (Birdie + Boyfriend) + (Deve + Girlfriend) = Normal Eighth Grade Experience. And normal is something Birdie craves, especially with a mom as overprotective as hers.
She doesn’t expect Deve to be so against her plan, or for their fight to blow up in her face. So when the West African god Anansi appears to her, claiming to be able to make everything right again, Birdie pushes past her skepticism and makes a wish for the whole mess to go away. But with a trickster god, your wish is bound to come true in a way you never imagined.
Before long, Birdie regrets her rash words…especially when she realizes what’s really going on with her and Deve. With her reality upended, can Birdie figure out how to undo her wish?
As You Wish
AUTHOR: Nashae Jones
PUBLISHER: Aladdin
DATE: January 14, 2025
As You Wish is hilarious, sweet, and a little bit swoony. We loved the time loop element set in middle school and the evergreen lesson of always being careful what you wish for. (Is there anything more relatable than trying to transform your entire life and revamp your image in middle school? We’ve all been there.)
Before you go leaning into the whole “new year, new you” mantra too deeply, enjoy some sage wisdom from Birdie, who learns a thing or two about trying to transform and reinvent her image between the pages of As You Wish. (Penned by the fabulous Nashae Jones, of course!)
Birdie’s Guide to Transforming Yourself for the New Year:
BIRDIE: Hey everyone, I’m Birdie. Well technically, my first name is Bernadette, but no one calls me that except my mother when she gets mad at me. So yeah, call me Birdie. I’m writing this very exclusive list —that I could probably sell for billions of dollars—for you because I think it’s important to share life-saving information. And let’s be honest, every piece of advice about surviving middle school should be considered lifesaving info.
The new year is a great time to reinvent yourself. I mean, even my cousin Erin—who is the most sensible person I know—just gave herself some very crooked bangs. And as someone who has personal experience with the unfortunate consequences of reinventing yourself, I thought I would impart some knowledge by sharing a list of dos and don’ts for when you decide to reinvent yourself for the new year.
DO remember that you only have control over yourself. Trying to change other people to make yourself happy is going to end up making you and that other person miserable. If you start trying to change other people’s behaviors, you could end up losing that person’s trust.
DON’T try to be popular just because you think that’s what you’ve got to do to fit in. Trust me when I tell you that changing everything about yourself just to fit in with people who don’t get the real you is just going to make you more miserable than you were to begin with.
DO embrace the quirks that make you you. Do you like playing pickleball with your seventy-five-year-old grandma? Cool! Did you name your pet goldfish Swim Shady? Fin-tastic! Did you make wishes with an ancient spider trickster god? Even better! Let your weirdo flag fly.
DON’T take shortcuts to becoming a better you. It might seem really, really tempting to wish your way to a less nagging mom or to more invitations to back-to-school bonfires, but magical instant solutions never work. Slow and steady wins the race.
If you follow these guidelines, I’m pretty sure—well, at least 86% sure—that you’ll be successful in your new year’s transformation. Just make sure you avoid any trickster gods offering you three wishes.
💘ACCIDENTAL CUPID: Check out our FIERCELY FICTIONAL spotlight on Courtesy of Cupid, another magical middle school rom-com about a girl who accidentally discovers she has the powers of Cupid on her thirteenth birthday!
