Sometimes – many times – you wish you had a magic wand.

You’d change your entire life, from your room to your wardrobe, your school to your love life. Everything would be perfect forever but alas, there’s no such thing as a magic wand. Then again, as in “Geekerella” by Ashley Poston, dreams can come true.

Danielle Wittmer was sick of never-ending chores around the house but what was she gonna do? Since her father died and left her with a Stepmonster and two ugly-inside stepsisters, sixteen-year-old Elle didn’t have much say in how things were run.

Elle did the cleaning, the cooking, she did it all, but though Stepmonster Catherine could use up Elle’s free time, she couldn’t take away Elle’s memories. Catherine couldn’t erase the time Elle spent with her dad or their love for the TV show Starfield. Unlike so many of the things Elle’s father gave her through the years, Catherine couldn’t throw out Elle’s memories of ExcelsiCon.

Yep, Elle was practically born a Starfield fan and because her dad started ExcelsiCon, most of her childhood was spent with its actors and other fans. She knew every episode by heart, word-for-word, scene-by-scene – which is why she was angry that the directors of the new Starfield movie hired Darien Freeman to play the handsome Carmindor.

Freeman was a teen soap opera star! He wasn’t Carmindor – he was totally wrong for the part! Fuming, Elle blogged about it before she went to work at The Magic Pumpkin, a greasy vegan food truck where life didn’t stink quite as bad as it did at home.

Darien Freeman didn’t want stardom. Not really.

He longed for his old life, when fan-cons were fun, fans were nice, and people didn’t blog bad things about him. He told his manager, Mark (who was also his father), that he didn’t want to attend ExcelsiCon but once it was announced on national TV, Darien was stuck. All he could do was hope that his text-crush would be there.

He’d “met” her while looking for the phone number of someone at ExcelsiCon who could release him from that ridiculous obligation. He’d never seen her face-to-face but he somehow knew her heart. To Darien, she was already magic…

Remember how, as a child, you were utterly captivated by the tale of a poor orphan girl and her accidental path to Princesshood? That classic tale has grown up now, and “Geekerella” is pretty cute.

Gone are sewing birds and horse-drawn carriages. The stuffy king is now a driven businessman. Author Ashley Poston gives her heroine a Fairy Godmother with green hair and a carriage that smells like grease, but the romance is still here: teen readers will be thrilled by a dashing (but secretly geeky) prince and they’ll love to hate the evil (but beautiful) stepmother.

Best of all, there’s a happily-predictably Happily Ever After here, and whether you’re twelve or ninety-twelve, it’ll make you smile. If a just-right ending is just-right for you, put “Geekerella” in your basket. Go ahead. You know you wand it.

“Geekerella” by Ashley Poston,
c.2017,
Quirk Books, $18.99 / $23.99 Canada,
320 pages