Gr 6-10

In New Avalon, most everyone has a personal fairy. Charlie, 14, has a parking fairy; if she is in a car, a perfect parking spot is found on the first try. But since Charlie doesn't drive and hates exhaust, she thinks she's been cursed. Her friend Rochelle has a clothes-shopping fairy that makes everything look perfect on her, and her sworn enemy, Fiorenze, has an every-boy-will-like-you fairy. Charlie's attempts to starve her fairy away by walking everywhere just collects her demerits for lateness at New Avalon Sports High, where it is all sports all the time. When the water polo star virtually kidnaps her in his car for his illegal purposes and the "pulchritudinous" new boy on whom she has a crush falls for Fiorenze, Charlie needs to get drastic. She and Fiorenze forge an alliance and hatch a plan to switch their fairies, and she learns to be careful about what she wishes for. With the every-boy-will-like-you fairy, girls turn on Charlie, and she wonders whether Steffi likes her or if he is just responding to her fairy. Charlie is totally likable, smart, and sarcastic, a perfectly self-involved, insecure teen. At its core, this is a typical coming-of-age story, but the addition of the fairies, the slightly alternative setting, and the made-up slang make it much more. This "doos" (brilliant) fantasy will not be ditched.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME

Charlie attends a magnet school for gifted athletes in a world where people are guided by unseen fairies with such special powers as styling good hair and finding loose change. Charlie is frustrated by hers, a parking fairy who guarantees that whatever car she's riding in will find a premium parking spot waiting at every destination. At 14, she'd rather have a clothes-shopping fairy or an every-boy-will-like-you fairy. Her efforts to rid herself of her fairy lead to a series of escalating mishaps involving the new boy at school, her archrival and multiple demerits. Things go awry when Charlie gets what she thinks she wants, and she must face some uncomfortable truths in order to solve the problems she's created. Larbalestier's repetitive use of creative slang will be familiar to those who enjoyed Louise Rennison's Confessions of Georgia Nicolson (2000, etc.). Fans of Larbalestier's award-winning Magic or Madness trilogy (2005, etc.) might be put off initially by the glib tone, but this comic coming-of-age novel will entertain teen readers. (demerits and suspensions, "List of Known Fairies Justine Thinks You Should Know," glossary) (Fantasy. 11-14)