Make a wish…
Lennie always thought her uncles’ “important family legacy” was good old-fashioned bootlegging. Then she takes some of her uncles’ moonshine to Michaela Gordon’s annual house party, and finds out just how wrong she was.
At the party, Lennie has everyone make a wish before drinking the shine—it’s tradition. She toasts to wishes for bat wings, for balls of steel, for the party to go on forever. Lennie even makes a wish of her own: to bring back her best friend, Dylan, who was murdered six months ago.
The next morning gives Lennie a whole new understanding of the phrase be careful what you wish for—or in her case, be careful what wishes you grant. Because all those wishes Lennie raised a jar of shine to last night? They came true. Most of them came out bad. And once granted, a wish can’t be unmade…
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Guns, Murder, Kidnapping, Torture.
Down with the Shine is a Young Adult Fantasy novel. I didn’t really to know what to expect with this book, except for the fact that I would end up liking it or not liking it at all. For that reason, I waited until I could borrow Down with the Shine from the library to read it.
Down with the Shine has a great concept to the story–that Lennie can grant peoples’ wishes. With that in hand, imagine what could happen in this book, and then double it. That’s what pretty much happened in this book.
Turns out, Down with the Shine is such a weirdly interesting book that I couldn’t stop reading. I read this book in one sitting. I seriously thought that I’d end up not liking Down with the Shine. Turns out, while the book has some messed up circumstances, the book is not all that bad.
Right when we start reading you realize that there’s a lot of stuff going on in Lennie’s life. What is something redeemable about Down with the Shine is that the way the story is set up is that, the focus of the story doesn’t focus on any unimportant things. The story gets down the actual story. And booiiiiiii, the story is such a shit show (in a good way). The craziness is comparable to a circus show gone very, very wrong. I found this circus to be highly entertaining.
Nearing the end, the story is still kinda crazy, but the crazy is so toned down that in comparison (to the middle of the book) the ending is completely tame! Which was a nice way to end Down with the Shine. And in my opinion, the ending is way better than the almost ending.
I ended up giving Down with the Shine, 2 of 5 stars on Goodreads.
Have you read Down with the Shine? If you have, what’re your thoughts on the book?
Happy Reading!
Adele
