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    How to Ditch Your Fairy
    How to Ditch Your Fairy
    How to Ditch Your Fairy
    Audiobook6 hours

    How to Ditch Your Fairy

    Written by Justine Larbalestier

    Narrated by Kate Atkinson

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this audiobook

    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 find 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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 29, 2009
    ISBN9781441801982
    Author

    Justine Larbalestier

    JUSTINE LARBALESTIER is the author of the award-winning Magic or Madness trilogy. She wishes she had a clothes shopping fairy instead of the procrastination fairy she battles with almost every day. She is married to author Scott Westerfeld and divides her time between Sydney and New York City.

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    Reviews for How to Ditch Your Fairy

    3.5/5

    274 ratings45 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Good silly fun.
    • 4/5
      Fun read. It is meant for young readers but anyone can enjoy.
    • 2/5
      How To Ditch Your Fairy was kind of boring to me through not really being my thing. It's less about fantasy and more about teenage girls, and managed to be really predictable to me as well. And, you know, all the slang that I've come to accept as standard in a Larbalestier book...

      I don't know. Teenage girls being teenage girls felt about right, but the amount of slang was a bit too much, and yeah, with teenage girls being teenage, it felt very, very juvenile.

      Just... not absorbing, to me.
    • 5/5
      Very cute little story. Any little girl will like it.
    • 3/5
      This book is an odd one -- but plunging into the quirky world building and sudden, unexpected slang of another place is always entertaining. New Avalon, and it's obsessive schools (this one for sports), and it's luck-fairies, and the verbal play reminds me of the Flora Secunda books. The only thing to do is dive right in.

      On the whole, I enjoyed it. I was frustrated at the cardboard cutout adults, and the fact that even when she was being physically kidnapped Charlie didn't bother to ask for help. It went too far! She shouldn't have to handle stuff like that on her own! It's stupid and dangerous, and she chose to go with a stupid and dangerous way of handling it and there were no real repercussions. C'mon now, that's a crappy message to send. But it's a funny book, and a light book, and I guess that makes it ok?
    • 2/5
      I wanted more from this book than it gave me.

      I wanted super seekrit conspiracy theories about the Ours and creepy, big brotheresque, drugs-in-the-drinking-water, evil mind rays that affected the east and west coasts’ perceptions of one another.

      I wanted fairies to be a government cover-up for weird military related drug trials.

      I wanted Larbalestier (whose blog I love) to stop using words like doos and doxhead and pulchy because it made me want to punch characters in the face, and violence is wrong. You can’t see me, but I just nodded sagely as I typed that.

      I wanted more. Clearly.

      But I’m giving it two stars because maybe if you don’t want all those things it’s a better novel. I am too biased by my need for deep dark secrets to judge it fairly.
    • 3/5
      The grass is always greener on the otherside of the fairy fence.
    • 2/5
      Well, words can't describe how disappointed I am with this book. Larbalestier's "Liar" was fantastic, but I have found her other offerings very mediocre and this one was just ridiculous. The front cover, the blurb and the author attracted me to "How to Ditch Your Fairy" but I didn't like Charlie's narration and I hated the use of slang. A total waste of time!
    • 1/5
      ARGUH, what language is this ? I got this on audio and there are so many made-up words and such a strong accent I can't tell what is happening. Oh, and what I do get is so Redicolous ! To be fair I only got to chapter 6 and deleted it. I could not take another word.
    • 3/5
      Oh, i needed this. Especially after my last book. This was light hearted and fun and just what i needed.
      So, i regret to say i never finished the Magic or Madness trilogy... i can't recall why though... = ... anyway so this is technically the first thing by Justine Larbalestier that i've read.
      It was adorable.
      The story was set in this... hmm i dunno would it be a parallel world? Where kids go to school based on what they excel in (ex. the Sports school Charlie and her friends go to as opposed to the Arts school) and almost everyone has a fairy that helps them (or not) in some way.
      Charlie has the sad fate of being stuck with a parking fairy. Which, you know, could be cool... but she hates cars and is only 14 so she can't... well drive... so it's pretty much a fail. Especially when she's picked up and used as a parking pass for a school bully (ok.. technically not a bully.. but i dunno what else i should call him...)
      So, Charlie gets it in her head to get rid of her fairy... how? well don't get in cars, don't use any form of transportation, just walk. Everywhere.
      Well... walking everywhere gets her into a lot of trouble and she slowly (or not.. actually it's rather quick) gathers demerits. (Demerits at a sports school = bad news)
      So, she switches fairies with a girl who has an all-boys-like-me fairy. Yes. Panic ensues.
      =)
      My favorite aspect of this book was the slang and the language. It took me a bit to get used to it, but after i did i loved it. Watch... now i'm gonna catch my self saying 'doos' and 'injured' .... i will too... i'm not kidding.
      So, an adorable book. A perfect light read.
    • 3/5
      Tones of Louise Rennison. 14-year-old Charlie has no idea how she got stuck with a parking fairy-- she can't even drive!-- when her schoolmates have shopping fairies and clear skin fairies and "make every boy like you" fairies that actually do some good. Will Steffi, the new boy at school, ever realize that Charlie is the girl for him, even if her fairy is doing NOTHING to help her cause?
    • 4/5
      A cute and imaginative little read. The slang had me cracking up, as did the premise. The only question I had at the end of the book is why the New Avaloners have the attitude they do. This is never explained to my satisfaction.
    • 4/5
      This was heaps of fun. I would enjoy more books in the New Avalon world. Not just more about Charlie and her friends, but her sister (who is great) and the world Larbalestier has built, too.
    • 3/5
      OK, so what we have here is your typical semi-futuristic teen fantasy/SF/romance set in Australia.

      Basically, most people have a fairy (invisible, not Tinkerbell-style) that helps them out with a particular thing. So you might have a always-finds-fabulous-clothes-for-cheap fairy, or a never-drop-anything fairy, or a parking fairy, like the main character whose name I've already forgotten.

      She wants to get rid of the parking fairy because she is 14 and kind of dumb.

      She also goes to a kind of crazy sports school where she plays cricket and basketball and there is a cute boy that she likes. But unfortunately there is this other girl whose fairy is an every-boy-likes-you fairy.

      You can probably guess how it all turns out, but it was pretty cute.
    • 4/5
      Listened to the Brilliance Audio recording on Playaway narrated by Kate Atkinson. This was really fun - a perfect light-hearted listen. I have to admit that I expected the fairy switch to happen sooner as somehow I had heard about that ahead of time, but it wasn't really a problem. Atkinson did a fantastic job with the narration - particularly with the lists that began each chapter as those could have been a bore to listen to, but she infused them with plenty of personality. The Australian accent was fun, too! Charlie was definitely a bit of a brat at times, but she was still a sympathetic character which was a nice balance. Her friends were a little one-dimensional though and it seems just a little too perfect that she'd get exactly the fairy she'd want most at the end. The whole concept of how sports would work in the fairy world was a little weird for me too - wouldn't people see that as cheating? Despite my niggles, this was still great and would be particularly good for those who want a little magic in their chick lit. Now that I think about it, this actually reminded me a little of the Georgia Nicholson books in tone. And there aren't a whole bunch of titles that I can think of off the top of my head that combine magic and sports.
    • 3/5
      Light and fun, but oh dear does invented slang drive me bonkers.
    • 3/5
      In how to ditch your fairy, Charlie needs to get rid of her parking fairy because other people keep "borrowing" her fairy's help which means they need to borrow Charlie too. She's worked very hard to get rid of her fairy by never giving it a chance to do its thing, but other people aren't helping her. Her attempts are earning her demerits in her Sports High School.This story is very amusing, but I expected more from Justine Larbalestier since she's well known for her feminism. The story almost went further, but then didn't quite. Worth reading, but not worth a reread.
    • 4/5
      In Charlie's world, (almost) everyone has a fairy that provides them with some kind of minor magical power, like always finding loose change or always having good hair. Charlie has a fairy that allows whatever car she is in to always find the best parking spot. She hates it, because a big dumb water polo player at her all-sports high school keeps kidnapping her so he can get the best parking spots while he runs around town. So Charlie comes up with a plan to get rid of her fairy and get a better one, like the every-boy-will-like-you fairy. This proves to be difficult because almost no one knows anything about what the fairies actually are or how they work.YA books always sound so much better to me in theory than in practice. The writing wasn't great, the plot had holes, and the main character was very self-centered. But then I finished the whole book in less than 24 hours and I remembered what I DO like about YA books.Overall the book wasn't bad, and I particularly liked a few things that Larbalestier did: 1) The stuck-up rich girl that everyone hates is actually just super shy 2) There are pretty much zero traditional gender roles. This is difficult to do in a sports-centered community but it's well done here. 3) Sexuality: most boys like girls and most girls like boys but some boys like boys and some girls like girls and some girls aren't sure if they like boys or girls. The words "gay" and "lesbian" aren't even mentioned; people just like who they like. No one is grouped or labeled; everyone is friends with everyone else. It's awesome 4) Institutionalized corruption and complacency in sports: There are all kinds of weird rules at Charlie's school that must be followed at all times (even when not at school) for pretty much no reason, but everyone just accepts them. There is rampant gambling and bullying which are just overlooked because tattling is against the rules. The sports stars of the school are allowed to do whatever they want, and they don't get in trouble because the administration wants to keep them happy so they will keep playing well. (I have seen all of this in real life in college, and it is horribly corrupt but no one will do anything about it because sports = $$$$ and fame)In conclusion, the plot fell flat but the subtler parts of the story made up for it. I'm really interested in reading more by this author.
    • 3/5
      In a world where almost everyone has a fairy (loose-change fairy, good hair fairy, never late fairy), Charlie is stuck with a parking fairy. Whichever car she rides in will always find a prime parking spot. Charlie detests her fairy and is desperate to get rid of it. But when she teams up with her least favourite person in the world, Fiorenze, who also wants to ditch her fairy, they end up with far more trouble than they bargained for.If you're not a fan of traditional fantasy fairies, don't bypass this book. While fairies play a major role in the novel, not once does one talk or appear so don't let this being a "fairy book" keep you away. The novel is far more about the delightful alternate reality Larbalestier has created and watching as Charlie discovers that people are more complex than she had imagined and that Fiorenze in particular may not be as odious as she appears. Charlie's nascent romance with the new boy, Stefan is also very adorable. A fun, fluffy read that won't tax you much.
    • 4/5
      Very entertaining YA fantasy.
    • 3/5
      Fourteen-year-old Charlie hates her fairy. All it does is help find great parking spaces, and she doesn't even drive. She wishes she had a cool fairy like her best friend, who has a shopping fairy, or like her arch-enemy Fiorenze, who has a fairy that makes every boy fall in love with her. So, Charlie sets out to get rid of her fairy, in hopes that she'll end up with a new, better one once the old fairy is gone.While not the best YA I've ever read, Larbalestier weaves an entertaining story about friendship, acceptance, and perseverance. The characters were realistic, and the plot device of "everyone has a fairy" wasn't so over the top as to feel out of place in the otherwise real-world context. My only real qualm with the book was the made-up dialogue, which I know isn't unusual in some YA books where the setting isn't *exactly* a contemporary city as we'd know it. The author did include a glossary in the back of the book, however, which I appreciated.Overall, while it wasn't a remarkable book, it was a fun read and probably the best thing I've read from Larbalestier so far.
    • 2/5
      I would definitely consider this a book for middle schoolers. The writing was easy to read. I liked the concept of the fairies and thought the book was humorous. I sometimes think the author re-used words too much.
    • 3/5
      Charlie is a great character. I adored her. She is dedicated to her cause, funny, and has attitude. I loved watching (reading) her grow and change through the course of the book. Everything Charlie wanted at the beginning, by the end she has a new perspective of and appreciation for.Ms. Larbalestier builds a cool, made-up country, as well as a cool, made-up school. (At least I think it's a made up school. I'd never heard of a sports school like Charlie attends, but maybe they exist?) Both are believable, as are the fairies. I love how the fairies are accepted as a fact of life by most, but that there are still skeptics who believe it's a bunch of phooey.I did find the repetitive counting of events/demerits at the beginning of each chapter rather tedious, especially near the end. I loved listening to the book. Kate Atkinson was fabulous. I believed I was listening to a fourteen-year-old. I especially loved listening to her Australian accent. And the accent is necessary with all the Australian slang. (At least I'm assuming it's Aussie slang, I wouldn't really know. I suppose Ms. Larbalestier could have made it up?)
    • 4/5
      Lots of fun!
    • 4/5
      In a world where most people have a invisible, unsensible 'fairy', which gives good luck in a particular thing, not all fairies are created equal; and some can be downright difficult. Our heroine, attending a high school for sports stars, finds her parking fairy especially difficult to live with, and so she's taking steps-- by never riding in cars or other transport, she hopes to starve away her fairy. The unintended consequences of her plan tangle her up with a fairy expert, a girl with a boy-crazy fairy, and some difficult choices.This is a fun, funny, teenage angst novel with magic-like elements, which is why our 11-year-old picked it up and enjoyed it. While there's some moral in here (our heroine finds out first hand why having a boy-crazy fairy isn't a good thing, and why the owner of such a fairy has social troubles, not to mention that her big, famous hometown might be just a *little* parochial), there's no heavy-handedness here. This is a fun read, and at least to me, reads true to teen thought processes. Adults may be concerned about some remarkably stupid choices of some of the characters, but again, that's true to life too-- even if it merits a family discussion among the readers.
    • 4/5
      Plot: Charlie has a parking fairy and she hates it. Everyone is always hijacking her to get the perfect parking space and she doesn’t even like cars. So she decides to get rid of her fairy. Unfortunately she isn’t sure how to go about it and trying is getting her into a lot of trouble.This book is a lot of fun. I really got caught up in it. And though the plot sounds silly (and is written with great humour) getting a new fairy really matters to Charlie and Larbalestier makes you care about it too. There are elements of a near future state that is very problematic beneath the shiny exterior (which made me think of her husband’s Uglies series) but she doesn’t dwell to much on that. She hints at the problems with the society and then lets it go. I’d be curious to read a different book set in the same world that addresses these issues. My one big issue was the made-up slang which bothered me a lot at first, it could at times make the dialogue seem really clunky, but I got use to it at length. Very fun, definitely recommended.
    • 4/5
      Meg's other Christmas present! Thanks Meg!The thing I liked best about the story was that I didn't know how it would end until it ended. It is a younger read than other teen fiction books, so a lot of developments are pretty straightforward, but I liked being genuinely excited by whatever would happen to their fairies.Fairies huh? One of the weaker points I think was the handling of fairies as a religious idea, which makes sense but didn't really make sense. There's not really two ways about it based on the things that happen in the story, and there's a few more fascinating ideas mentioned once that I'd prefer hearing more about. (The idea that fairies have only existed for a few generations could be a good world-builder.)I liked how I read the first paragraph like five times because I didn't know if something magical was happening, something futuristic, something Australian, or something funny. (It's something funny.) Also, the book just has something about it that's great. I love the title, I love the cover. I love the little chapter header gimmick. It's just right.
    • 4/5
      There's some really cool things in this one. This is my second Larbalestier, having just read Liar.It takes place in a country and city that doesn't really exist -- that she says is sort of a cross between the US and Australia. And it's also slightly in the future. So it has somewhat of a science fiction feel to it.. and actually, if she'd provided more of a scientific explanation for the fairies, it could be science fiction. So I classify it in the same camp I put Diane Duane's Wizardry series. Technically fantasy, but it really reads like science fiction to me.Charlie goes to a sports school, so her entire curriculum is centered around sports, and she's on several different sports teams simultaneously. And of course with a school like that, you're health and diet is pretty regulated and all. And it's also very disciplined, so she keeps racking up demerits.At the same time, almost everyone has a fairy. And she has a parking fairy. Whatever car she's in, it always gets a really good parking spot. She thinks this is a lame fairy, so hence the title of the book. She's trying to get rid of it, so she can get a better one. Like one of her friends has a shopping fairy and helps her get really cool clothes for great prices.I was intrigued by the idea and I liked the world. The book did leave me a little confused by the end. I wasn't quite sure what was up with that Andrew kid. And it also left me wanting to know more about the fairies, so I hope she's planning a sequel.
    • 4/5
      I have an ulterior motive for reviewing How to Ditch Your Fairy. Writing a review gives me a good excuse to post the book’s amazing paperback cover. Go ahead and take a minute - get a real good look at that sucker. Take that, Tinkerbell! Now, we all know what they say about books and covers. But we’re going to ignore that for the moment - I’m giving you permission to judge this one. Because this book is very funny, a little bit subversive, and just sweet enough for some bright purple cursive script.If you live in New Avalon and you’re unexpectedly good at something, you’ve probably got a fairy. It could be something amazing, like Rochelle’s clothes-shopping fairy. It could be something mostly useless, like a loose-change-finding fairy. Or it could be something that gets you unceremoniously stuffed into the back of a massive hockey player’s car every afternoon, like Charlie’s parking fairy. Charlie doesn’t have a car. Charlie doesn’t even LIKE cars, and she sure is sick of the smell of gasoline that seems to follow her around. When Charlie finds out that her arch-enemy Fiorenze is trying to get rid of her all-boys-like-you fairy, they hatch a plan to make a switch.New Avalon is just different enough to make things interesting in Larbalestier’s world - and Steffi, the love interest, is conveniently new to town. His presence both provides a way to add some exposition about the many quirks of New Avalon, and also gives a voice to the readers’ questions and frustrations about the local customs. Steffi makes a great voice of reason when everyone around him goes on about the Ours - New Avalon’s local celebrities - or when the rules and restrictions at Charlie’s school seem way over the top. He’s also helpful for translating the slang, which I found sometimes clever and sometimes just distracting.Charlie attends the local sports high school, where calorie counts are mandatory for all students, discipline is tight, and getting too many demerits means missing game time. And Charlie absolutely thrives on all of this. It was one thing that made her feel very different from character in many YA novels, where creativity and a quirkiness are the character traits that are glorified much of the time. Some people prefer having rules to follow and high standards to strive for - and it’s nice to see one of those people show up in a book every once in a while.The novel initially raised a lot of wonderful questions about the fairies. For one thing, not everyone in New Avalon believes that they exist, and no one really knows what they are, where they come from, or why some people have them. There seems to be some religious aspect to the fairies - people who don’t believe in them are not likely to have one, and are sometimes called “agnostics.” Fiorenze’s mother is a fairy expert, and Charlie and Fiorenze are guided by her extensive research. But Tamsin’s research is not just practical - it is ethical as well. She brings up some questions about the possible consequences of switching fairies. I was intrigued by a lot of these questions, and I wish they had been explored a little bit more - they mostly fall by the wayside as the story’s action takes off.In the end, this was a good light read that I thought had the potential to be something more. But don’t let that take away from the fun of the story. It’s well worth reading for the luge scene alone!
    • 4/5
      This was a cute YA book. Its set in ,as the author says “an imaginary country perhaps a little in the future.” It had some interesting slang and am glad she put a glossary in the back to explain what these words meant but she did use one of my favorite words “ discombobulated” and it was fun to see someone else use it.This was a light fun read I liked the different fairies the “Parking Fairy”, ’The Shopping Fairy”, “The All-Boys-Will-Like-You Fairy”. It was cute to see how you can be jealous of someone and find out that what they have is not all its cracked up to be. If you have teenagers who like a light fun read I recommend this one!