Review: Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes
by Denise Grover Swank

Genre: Adult Thriller/Chic Lit
*****
For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.


Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen-- do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty secrets of his own.
Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all.

This book is fantastic! She had me at the first sentence. I thought it was going to be a little slow. I mean, how interesting can working at the DMV be? Right? *nods* Right. I love the fact that Ms. Swank took the exciting (Rose's visions) and made them mundane ("You're dog's going to get out of the fence."). It gave Rose a more grounded, and well-rounded character that easily leaped off the page. She's naive and her reactions are real, not great and sometimes a little embarrassing, but real. Rose is not the type of character I generally sync with, but Ms. Swank did a superb job of creating a truly 3-dimensional character.

The other characters surrounding Rose were equally well-built without wasting a lot of white-space. It didn't feel as though we paused to meet or chat with anyone, the pace moved so quickly. However, at the same time, I felt as though I had the opportunity to meet and get to know almost all of the characters in this book.

The town is truly a character in and of itself. Fabulous!

Joe was a bit of a mystery. I was a little suspicious of hi at first, and rightly so! He comes off the page as being a little too keen and a little too interested. I was beginning to doubt Ms. Swank, but then he did something and I just knew  she wouldn't let me down. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but just have faith. Ms. Swank knows what she's doing and did it very well.

The biggest thing for me, though, was that the story struck a little close to home. I came from a background similar to that and I wish I'd done what Rose did; create a list of 28 1/2 wishes and see if I could make them come true. Granted, I did...and one by one, they are coming true. But, boy, wouldn't it be neat if we all did that? Wrote a list of 28 1/2 things we've never done...and then just did them. I think the world would be filled with more than just a few happier people.

Enjoy the read! It's one that once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down.