The Wish List

by Eoin Colfer

Paperback, 2000

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Genres

Collection

Accelerated Reader

Publication

O'Brien Press Ltd (2000), 176 pages

Description

Horror. Young Adult Fiction. Eoin Colfer has made millions of fans around the world with his much-loved character, Artemis Fowl, the star of his hugely best-selling series. Now, in a beautifully written novel that is already breaking records in his native Ireland, Colfer introduces readers to a lovable but troubled heroine, who has been given the opportunity for a special kind of redemption. Meg Finn is in trouble-unearthly trouble. Cast out of her home by her stepfather after her mother's death, Meg is a wanderer, a troublemaker. But after her latest stunt, finding a place to sleep is the least of her worries. Belch, her partner in crime, has gotten her involved in the attempted robbery of an elderly man, Lowrie McCall. And things go horribly wrong. After an accidental explosion, Meg's spirit is flung into limbo, and a race begins between the demonic and the divine to win her soul. Irreverent, hilarious, and touchingly hopeful, The Wish List takes readers on a journey of second chances, where joy is found in the most unexpected places.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member heidilove

WOW! Colfer proves that his wonderful honest and funny approach isn't limited to the Artemis series. If this delightful little trip into hell is a glimpse of things to come, please bring it on!

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LibraryThing member BookWhisperer

This YA book was a breath of fresh air, something completely different than I have read lately. It is the belief that was we do in this world will determine where we go in the next. It is not what we believe it is what we do that defines us. The Wish List, invokes that belief to enlighten us with a

story of a girl that had made many wrong decisions in her life, but the one right before she dies might have saved her. Now can she continue on a angelic path so that she will be graced with her eternity in heaven, or will she make another bad decision that could send her to hell.

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LibraryThing member sara_k

The Wish List is by the author of The Artemis Fowl series. Like Eoin Colfer's other books The Wish List has a melding of supernatural and mortal worlds but this time the melding does not involve the world of faerie but the worlds of the afterlife. Like the other books, technology pops up in

unexpected places.

Meg is killed by her partner in crime during a home invasion; this should send her right to hell along with Belch and his dog (now one being) but just before her death she tried to stop the crime and put her life at risk to save the life of an old man. One in several million, Meg has a life exactly balanced between good and evil deeds. Meg is given a chance to redeem herself by returning to earth and fulfilling the Wish List but Satan has decided that she must not succeed and he is sending someone to stop her. Humanity ensues.

Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member wyvernfriend

This was published a year before Artemis Fowl and was reprinted after Artemis became a great hit, for which I can't blame the publishers. It is a story about the Christian afterlife as propagated in story and tale in Ireland for centuries. It has a minion of the devil and a minon of God fighting

for the control of a balanced soul. It is a well-used story, showing some age but I enjoyed it.

On the face of it it's obvious that Meg Finn should go to hell. She was involved in a breakin on Lowrie McCall with Belch Brennan and his nasty pit bull Raptor, the outcome of which was Lowrie injured by the dog and Meg, Belch and Raptor dead, because Belch needed to prove his superiority and threaten Meg and accidentally blow them all to bits. When Meg arrives in the afterlife she's balanced between good and evil and gets a chance to go back and earn her way into heaven. She has to help Lowrie. Lowrie decides to make a wish list of things he wishes he had done, and the two of them go to it. Meanwhile Hell send Belch after her.

It's light, predictable, fun and I enjoyed it as a fun diversion.

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LibraryThing member HustonAlba3

This book was an amazing read. I really do hope they make it into a movie. The begining is about a girl named Meg who did something wrong in her life which led to a bad time of stealing and myschief. She dies in a gun fire accident, but she's speacial, so when she dies she does not go to heaven,

neither hell... she gets a second chance to make things right.

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LibraryThing member essa868

A cleverly written story about girl trying to make it to heaven. There's nothing better than reading about Saint Peter and Beelzebub duking it out.

LibraryThing member hoosgracie

It took me awhile to warm up to this story, but ultimately I enjoyed the play of good and evil and the journey to come to terms with death.

LibraryThing member missmath144

A girl dies in the process of committing a crime in which she tries to keep her partner from hurting an old man. So she's bad for committing the crime but good for trying to protect the old man. Should she go to heaven or hell? Well, she gets sent back down to earth to make amends. She has to do

this by helping the old man fulfill his list of things he wishes he had done -- like play ball in Yankee Stadium (or whichever stadium is in his town, I forget), kiss the girl he took out once and really liked, etc. Meanwhile, God and Satan are working to get her to their sides, and they have cell phones, computers, and holograms to work with.

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LibraryThing member gerleliz

Enjoyable, fun short read

LibraryThing member KarenAJeff

Meg Finn is in trouble. She's dead, but not at peace--she's in limbo, her good deeds perfectly balanced against her bad deeds; Heaven or Hell wait, a tip of the scale away. So she's back on Earth trying to tip the scale to the good by helping her last victim, and her former "partner" is also back,

trying to force her to tip the scale to the bad.

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LibraryThing member ajramsden

Fourteen-year-old Meg Finn had done enough bad deeds in her lifetime to put her on the fast track to hell, however, during her last moments on Earth it is the good act of trying to save an old man’s life that might save her soul. During a botched robbery, Meg and her partner in crime, Belch, are

accidently killed with Belch and his evil dog going to hell and Meg in limbo. Meg’s spirit is sent back to Earth with the task of setting things straight in order to escape eternity in hell and she returns to Lowrie, the old man she helped save, but who was also injured during the robbery. To get into the pearly gates Meg must help Lowrie complete his “wish list,” a list of regrets he wants to change in his life, but time is running out and Belch is back from hell with a mission of his own: to see that Meg fails.
While fantasy and supernatural type books are usually not what I typically read and it took me awhile to get into Wish List, I could soon see why this book is popular for teens. Colfer’s writing style is hysterically funny in some scenes and it helps that the book never takes itself too seriously. I think that this title would also be a good recommendation for reluctant readers if they have no issues with the afterlife topic.

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LibraryThing member ykolstad

This is an interesting, (OK wacky) take on the after-life. Normally this type of book would not be my particular cup of orange soul-residue, but I'll admit that I didn't want to stop reading until the it was over. I liked how the author withheld the details of the terrible deeds that Meg had

inflicted on her step-father until the end. This is a kinda-creepy, often- silly book that finishes with a cool blue twist that just makes you feel (surprisingly) good.

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LibraryThing member hahnasay

A good story. Easy to read and has a good message.

LibraryThing member burnit99

Meg Finn is a 14-year-old girl, trapped at home with an abusive stepfather after her mother's death. She has been lured by 16-year-old thug Belch to burglarize an old man, Lowrie McCall. Things go awry and both are killed in the act. Belch's spirit goes straight to Hell, but Meg has tipped the

scales dead even by trying to protect the old man from Raptor, Belch's pit bull. So, to determine her afterlife address, she is sent back to the old man as a spirit with a mission: to help him in whatever way he decides important during his remaining time on Earth. Satan wants the girl, so sends Belch back to gum up the works. I've read a few other books with similar plots, but Colfer brings his unique style and humor to this one, and it is certainly the most entertaining of the lot. There's also a final paragraph that succeeded in getting me all teary-eyed.

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LibraryThing member kristy-zeluff

Outstanding and original. I listened to it on CD, which I highly recommend. Excellent performance.

LibraryThing member Dog_Ogler

Very funny and clever book.

LibraryThing member lalalibrarian

I listened to the audio book. Satan's character sounded like a cross between Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. :)

LibraryThing member xmol

A short yet good read by the skilled Eoin Colfer, The Wish List is a story I've read many, many times, and every time I find I like it even more. Following the adventures of a girl named Meg: a troubled girl who finds her self -literally- taking a wrong turn, Colfer brings the reader to hell and

back, all in search of redemption. With the same sort of anti-heroic good we found in Artemis Fowl, this book is sure to get fans of that series just as excited.

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LibraryThing member tjsjohanna

Mr. Colfer sets the stage - girl must find a way to tip the balance if she wants to get to heaven. There are some entertaining characters and a growing attachment between Meg and Lowrie. The only part I found lacking was the idea that Meg was a delinquent. All the back story shows her doing very

understandable things - not truly immoral things. But that might be a bit of nit-picking.

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LibraryThing member Mirandalg14

What if you were neither good or bad, but right in the middle? What would happen when you died?

LibraryThing member br13karo

The Wish List by Eoin Collifer is about a girl named Meg. Meg is in a bad time in her life and decides to go with Belch, a boy her age who is a trouble maker, to rob a old man named Lowrie. But when Lowrie catches them, threatens to shoot them, then gets attacked by Belch's vicious dog, meg runs

outside to the alley. Belch then takes Lowrie's gun, goes out to the alley, and tries to shoot Meg, but misses. The bullet hits the gas tank behind Meg, and they both die. Belch goes to Hell, but Meg's auora is purple, half red, half blue. So Meg gets to try to save her soul by going back, as a spirit, to grant Lowrie his last wishes, before time runs out, or the devil gets her.
I really enjoyed this book. I Iiked how the author portrayed the concept of Heaven and Hell. Eoin described how she saw Heaven and Hell so well, that it felt like I was a spirit drifting along "The Tunnel". Eoin also did an excellent job of describing the devil. She gave him such a specific personality, and distinctive charectoristics. I loved how well I was able to picture the story, due to the wording and the descriptions. But I also like how creative Eoin Collifer got when it came down to Lowrie's wishes and Meg's powers. They were just so unexpected but i can't be specific because I don't want to give it away. The Wish List is so different than any other book that I have ever read. I would reccomend it to anyone who appreciates reading really good books, and who takes the time to really imagine everything that the author has written down.

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LibraryThing member akmargie

Not my favorite Eion Colfer but a very interesting take on life after death and what it means to be good or evil.

LibraryThing member ScoutJ

A fun story, different, though just as enjoyable as Coifer's other works. A coming of eternity story for the young and the old proving once again, that those of us the middle are the natural, mutual enemy...

LibraryThing member ogorobez

Meg and Belch were doing a job. Meg and Belch. Sounded like some sort of comedy double act. But it wasn't. There was nothing funny about breaking into a pensioner's flat. Raptor was slobbering on Meg's boots. 'Do we really need the mutt?' she hissed, wiping her dripping boot in the flowerbed.
Belch

turned away from the window. Piggy eyes glared out from under gelled spikes of hair. 'Listen, Finn,' he whispered. 'Raptor is no mutt. He is a pure breed, from a long line.' Meg rolled her eyes. Belch returned to window-jimmying, worming the blade of the screwdriver between the frame and the sill.

For the thousandth time, Meg Finn wondered what she was doing here. How had she sunk this far – skulking around the granny flats with a lowlife like Belch Brennan? Her reflection glared accusingly from the window pane. For a second she saw the ghost of her mother in that face. The same wide blue eyes, the same braided blonde hair, even the same frown wrinkles between her eyebrows. What would Mam think of this latest escapade? Meg's involuntary blush answered the question for her.

Something slit in the window frame. 'We're in,' grunted Belch. 'Let's go.' Raptor scrabbled up the wall into the dark interior. He was the point-dog, sent in to check for hostiles. His orders were simple. Bite everything. If it screamed, it was hostile. The pit bull was not what you'd call a stealth canine and managed to barge into every stick of furniture on the ground floor.

'Why don't we just ring the bell?' groaned Meg. 'Oh stop your whining, Finn,' snorted Belch. 'Old Lowrie is deaf as a post anyway. You could set off fireworks in there and he wouldn't stop snoring.' Belch hoisted his considerable bulk over the sill, exposing a drooping belly in the process. Meg shuddered. Disgusting.

Her partner's face appeared from the darkness. 'Are you coming, Finn?' Meg paused. This was it. The line between bold and bad. The decision was hers....

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LibraryThing member jmoncton

Funny, upbeat story about a girl who after dying, is half-way between spending eternity in heaven or hell. She gets another chance on earth to hopefully send her heaven ward. Funny and sweet.

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