Jennifer Sharpe is a divorced mother of two with a problem just about any working parent can relate to: her boss expects her to work as though she doesn’t have children, and her children want her to care for them as though she doesn’t have a boss. But when, through a fateful coincidence, a brilliant physicist comes into possession of Jennifer’s phone and decides to play fairy godmother, installing a miraculous time-travel app called Wishful Thinking, Jennifer suddenly finds herself in possession of what seems like the answer to the impossible dream of having it all: an app that lets her be in more than one place at the same time. With the app, Jennifer goes quickly from zero to hero in every part of her life: she is super-worker, the last to leave her office every night; she is super-mom, the first to arrive at pickup every afternoon; and she even becomes super-girlfriend, dating a musician who thinks she has unlimited childcare and a flexible job. But Jennifer soon finds herself facing questions that adding more hours to her day can’t answer. Why does she feel busier and more harried than ever? Is she aging faster than everyone around her? How can she be a good worker, mother, and partner when she can’t be honest with anybody in her life? And most important, when choosing to be with your children, at work, or with your partner doesn’t involve sacrifice, do those choices lose their meaning? Wishful Thinking is a modern-day fairy tale in which one woman learns to overcome the challenges—and appreciate the joys—of living life in real time.
Industry Reviews
"A quirky time-traveling adventure mixed with a treatise on the plight of the working mother . . . Wicoff has a comic touch with this amiable fantasy."
-Kirkus
"With a bit of time-space-bending whimsy, Wicoff taps into every parent's wistful dream."
-Booklist
"A thought-provoking, gimlet-eyed satire of contemporary motherhood in the guise of a romantic comedy, Wishful Thinking is a Trojan horse of a novel, delivering incisive social commentary while it entertains and delights you. I devoured every word of this funny, brilliant book."
-Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train
"Wishful Thinking is funny, tender, perceptive-I tore through it with delight."
-Gretchen Rubin, best-selling author of The Happiness Project and Happier At Home
"Wishful Thinking is a whimsical, time-bending tale about an overextended, working single mother's Year of Magical Living. The solution handed to Jennifer is both fanciful and practical. Who wouldn't want extra hours added to each day? If only!"
-Hope Edelman, The Possibility of Everything
"In Wishful Thinking, Kamy Wicoff takes a fantasy we've all had and turns it into a sparkling, witty, sympathetic take on the stresses, and the rewards, of motherhood, of work, and of being alive at this moment."
-Francine Prose, author of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris: 1932
