How to Ditch Your Fairy

By: Justine Larbalestier

Narrated by: Kate Atkinson

If you lived in a world where everyone had a personal fairy, what kind would you want?

A clothes-shopping fairy (The perfect outfit will always be on sale!)

A loose-change fairy (Pretty self-explanatory.)

A never-getting-caught fairy (You can get away with anything....)

Unfortunately for Charlie, she's stuck with a parking fairy - if she's in the car, the driver will fiind the perfect parking spot. Tired of being treated like a personal parking pass, Charlie devises a plan to ditch her fairy for a more useful model. At first, teaming up with her archenemy (who has an all-the-boys-like-you fairy) seems like a good idea. But Charlie soon learns there are consequences for messing with fairies - and she will have to resort to extraordinary measures to set things right again.

©2009 Justine Larbalestier (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"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." (School Library Journal)

A frustrated teenage girl story

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

The story had some good character banter. Some of it made my middle & high schoolers laugh. I found out that I wasn't the only listener in the car waiting for more.

What about Kate Atkinson’s performance did you like?

She has a great accent with an Aussie lilt that could convey just the right teen emotional expressions. Her voice gave a good personification to the characters and made them come alive much more than reading them on a page.

Any additional comments?

I think it would be lost on any listener under ~8 years old.

Great for early teens & YA readers

It's a super cute YA book/early teen book, so I'd give it a 4-star rating for that age-group and would definitely recommend for readers between the age of 11-14 (maybe even up to 16?). It's a cute story and well written for its target audience, but a bit juvenile for anyone beyond that audience, hence the 3-star rating.

not for me!

I started this book but only listened to about 30 minutes of it. I found it a silly premise for a silly book. When I selected it I did not take the description to mean that the "fairies" mentioned were to be actual fairies in some imaginary world. Just not the stuff for me.