If Wishes Were Retail — Auston Habershaw

A pop-up at the local mall meets Alladin in this cozy, chaotic, and deeply funny debut novel where an enterprising young woman and a clueless genie just try to make a living.Alex Delmore needs a miracle. She wants out of her dead-end suburban town, but her parents are broke and NYU seems like a distant dream.Good thing there’s a genie in town—and he’s hiring at the Wellspring Mall. It’d help if the Jinn-formerly-of-the-Ring-of-Khorad knew even one thing about 21st-century America. It’d help if he weren't at least as stubborn as Alex. It’d really help if her brother didn’t sell her out to her conspiracy theory-loving, gnome-hating dad.When Alex and the genie set up their wishing kiosk, they face seemingly-endless setbacks. The mall is failing and management will not stop interfering on behalf of their big-box tenants.But when the wishing biz might start working, the biggest problem of all remains: People are really terrible at wishing.