MG Review: I'm With Cupid by Anna Staniszewski

Published by: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky July 7th 2015
Genres:  Fantasy

Pages: 240

Format: Paperback
Source:  Review copy received from publisher for the purposes of the Cybils

Series:  Book 1 in the series with the sequel, FINDERS REAPERS, due out in March 2016.

My first introduction to Anna Staniszewski's writing was The Dirt Diary, which was nominated last year in the Realistic Fiction Category of the Cybils.  I really enjoyed it and was looking forward to reading another book from her new series which was nominated this year.  

In this newest series,  I'm with Cupid, she has an interesting twist on the premise of switching up two characters.  I'm pretty familiar with the body swapping idea from movies like Thirteen Going on Thirty, Freaky Friday or It's a Boy Girl Thing.  You know the one where a thirteen year old girl becomes a thirty year old women, or a mother and daughter or boy and girl swap bodies.  I'm With Cupid isn't quite that kind of swap, instead the characters swap powers when they are dared to kiss at a party.   You see Marcus is a Cupid and Lena is a reaper.   As you can probably guess, this results in some pretty humorous consequences.   What I enjoyed most about the book was how they really were such opposites of one another and their swap really brought them face to face with the thing they've been avoiding themselves. Marcus was so adorably shy, awkward and hopelessly smitten with Lena (for which she has no clue), he's also been holding on to things because he can't let them go.  He's emotional, for which he took way to much flack from his father over.  Being a Cupid, he believes in love at first sight, romance and there is someone out there for everyone.   Whereas, Lena doesn't believe in love or such fairy tale things.  She feels she is practical, well adjusted and grounded over ideas like moving on and that death is just a part of life.  Her approach to things is very different then that of Marcus, which just makes things more interesting and  difficult for the two of them when they have to adjust to their new found powers.  Lena and Marcus have to really communicate with each other about having powers and teach each other how to use them correctly.  So you can imagine there are some mishaps when you put a reaper in charge of sparking attraction between two people and then also put Cupid in charge of collecting souls.  Overall a very quick read and sweet introduction to a new series.  

Disclaimer,   I'm With Cupid has been nominated for the Cybils award and my review reflects my personal opinion, not the opinion of the Cybils committee.