Product Description

Meg Finn is in trouble, unearthly trouble. Cast out of her own home by her stepfather after her mother's death, Meg is a wanderer, a troublemaker. After a botched attempt to rob a pensioner's flat, Meg and her partner in crime, Belch, end up in a very sticky situation. Meg's soul is up for grabs as the divine and the demonic try every underhand ploy imaginable to claim it. Her only chance of salvation is the Wish List. But how can she persuade the pensioner Lowrie to help her when she has wronged him? Even if she can persuade him, will she really have enough points to face up to St Peter?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86715 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
This four-cassette unabridged recording of The Wish List is read by James Wilby. The running time is five hours 45 minutes.

Eoin Colfer's The Wish List is a bitter yet rip-roaringly funny tale of two wayward teenagers on the road to hell--literally. The story opens with Meg Finn and Belch Brennan, two bad kids on the block, breaking into a pensioner's flat. At the very last minute Meg reneges on the deal and tries to break for freedom, leaving the aged Lowrie McCall screaming with the pain inflicted by Belch's bloodthirsty hound. Backed into a corner by Belch and a shotgun, Meg pleads with Belch to call an ambulance and save the old man's life. Instead he pulls the trigger and in a split second of evil and madness the bullet hits a gas tank and knocks Meg's soul out of her skin, catapulting her spirit along a vast tunnel on the way to some particularly shiny, pearly gates.

Meanwhile, Beelzebub is fretting. His boss was expecting two souls, and although Belch (in his new incarnation as a dribbling, growling, red-eyed dog-boy) took the correct turn in the tunnel, he's rather miffed that Meg found her way to the beautifully buffed Pearlies and an interview with Saint Peter and his rather complicated points system. So, the archangel and the demon do a deal, and Meg is given a chance to redeem herself. If she fails on her mission to help Lowrie McCall work his way through his Wish List before he dies, then she too will be heading south to join the boy-band members, the mime artists, Belch and the world's computer boffins in fiery damnation...

The Wish List was first published in Ireland in 2000, bringing with it much critical acclaim. In 2002, following the enormous and well-deserved success of the Artemis Fowl books, Eoin Colfer's publishers decided to let the rest of the world sneak a peak. And about time too. Hopelessly hopeful, immorally moral, rattling with the pain of its anti-heroine as she faces her own demons, and rib-crackingly, laugh-out-loud funny, The Wish List strikes an almost perfect balance between good, old-fashioned scruples and thoroughly modern irreverence in what is ultimately, and most importantly, a darn good read. Not for the faint-hearted, and certainly not for those who can't take a border-line sick joke every now and then, The Wish List is a divinely devilish tale for anyone who enjoys a bucketful of grit and truck loads of wisecracks with their reading material. Ages 10 and over, recommended particularly for older readers. --Susan Harrison

Review
An abused teen and a bitter old man find affection and redemption in this heartwarming . . . slapstick comedy? A bungled robbery leaves Meg and her pathetic partner Belch dead. Belch goes straight to hell, but Meg dies perfectly balanced between good and evil. She's given one last chance to save her soul by bringing some meaning to the last days of her intended victim, crotchety old-timer Lowrie. Soppy, perhaps, but for the humor of Lowrie's delinquent tasks for Meg, from trespassing to fisticuffs. Helping Lowrie won't do Meg much good if each of her good deeds moves her a little bit closer to hell. And Belch, more moronic than ever, has been sent back by Beelzebub to guarantee her failure. Worse, the temptation to use her reprieve for some late vengeance against her abusive stepfather might overwhelm Meg's mission. A lightweight and moving chuckler. (Fiction. 11-14) (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
Meg Finn is in trouble, unearthly trouble. Cast out of her own home by her stepfather after her mother's death, Meg is a wanderer, a troublemaker. After a botched attempt to rob a pensioner's flat, Meg and her partner in crime, Belch, end up in a very sticky situation. Meg's soul is up for grabs as the divine and the demonic try every underhand ploy imaginable to claim it. Her only chance of salvation is the Wish List. But how can she persuade the pensioner Lowrie to help her when she has wronged him? Even if she can persuade him, will she really have enough points to face up to St Peter?

Customer Reviews

One of my all time favourite books.
I love this book. I've read all the Artemis Fowl books, and I like them too, but The Wish List has to be my favourite Eoin Colfer, and one of my favourite books ever. I always recommend it when I do school visits to talk about my own books, and I'm amazed that more people haven't heard of it. It's funny and moving and clever - I wish I'd written it!

Heaven and hell and a soulfight
Before Artemis Fowl Colfer wrote a few books. This is one of them. It has a very Irish Christian view of the afterlife, the one handed down over the generations and seen on some films and tv shows. In the grand tradition of many of these it has the agents of the Devil and the agents of God fighting over a soul.

At first glance you have to wonder why it is that Meg Finn wouldn't go to hell, after all she died in an explosion while her partner-in-crime, Belch Brenann and his pit bull Raptor, tried to threaten her, after breaking into an old guys house. As the story unfolds you discover that in fact this was her first venture into crime and she had been treated badly by her step-father, leading her down the path towards uncaring and crime.

She has a chance to redeem herself, to bring her soul from balance between good and evil and commit to good. Help Lowrie McCall, the man they were trying to rob, fulfill his dreams. Lowrie and Meg go around Ireland to do this and find themselves learning more about themselves and about their lives that possibly they thought they would.

It's not heavy, it is cliched, but I enjoyed it as a fantasy story.

I love a great ghost story
The short and scary type are great too, but this is more about healing relationships and considering what you have done with your life, or more to the point, what you didn't do. Our ghost travels to hell and back and decides she doesn't like the decor one bit. The only way past Peter and the Pearly Gates is to help the victim of her bungled robbery. A stroppy, teenager and a grumpy old man are thrown together in a symbiotic relationship. Remember the saying 'you need to walk a mile in someone elses shoes before you can understand them' well these characters literally do just that as one of our ghost's skills is the possession of grumpy old men and of course armchairs. Colfer gets my award for promoting understanding between teens and gramps, reminding the young that they will get old one day and reminding the old that they were young once too! I loved the characters of Beelzebub and Peter and the idea of a hell populated by computer boffs. Colfer uses humour to entertain and offset the more serious message of the book. An often taboo subject - death - is dealt with in a matter of fact 'deadpan' way (sorry). I'd recommend this book to discerning readers of 11 and up (my neighbour just nicked my copy). An emotional gem packed with life lessons, remember you cant take your worldly goods with you when you go, but you can take regrets - very thought provoking.