A haunting tale of generational curses and how no matter how much you try the past will come back to haunt you - literally.

I found this book to be a fun and fascinating read, filled with legitimate danger and significant character growth as our main character learns to try to fight the curse haunting her and the town - as well as attempt to reconnect with her mother. When exploring the strange house that she and her mother moved into - seen as haunted by the local town - Ceci discovers a mysterious door that leads to a well that seemingly grants wishes. All is not as it seems, as this wishing well is more like a Monkey’s Paw situation and soon Ceci realizes the very real danger she is exposing to her friends and family by trying to find the easy way out of her problems. 

This book flew by as I read it, and I was hooked onto the local superstition of the town, as well as the very real history that is uncovered when Ceci begins to investigate further. I thought the tension was done extremely well, as we’re never certain how exactly this tale will end - or who are the true villains in this story. I also liked how even as we, as the reader, were putting together the pieces of Ceci and her mother’s past, we were never fully able to guess the ending or how everything would resolve. While I found the ending itself to be a bit predictable and cliche, I was never bored or uninterested in the storytelling itself. 

The thing I found the hardest to deal with during my reading was some of the dialogue between Ceci and Jamie, as well as the almost naive way Ceci embraces the wishes from this mysterious magical well - and refuses to acknowledge the very real dangers that ever wish she uses causes. However, this is a YA book so I cannot fault the book for having a young naive main character, when she is only about 16 and dealing with many issues on top of the magical wishing well. I also feel like, considering the book’s title being These Vengeful WIshes, that many of the wishes - and their consequences - were rather tame.