When a dad beats up his daugh­ter, he does not nec­es­sar­ily go to jail. But when a guy beats up a dad for beat­ing up his daugh­ter, they both go to jail. It is very confusing.

Perry’s Gram used to say that the L in his name stood for ‘Lucky’, and he is just that. While play­ing the lot­tery, which he did every week, Perry finds him­self 12 mil­lion dol­lars richer. Now every­one wants to be his friend, his family, who never talked to him oth­er­wise, wants him to hand it over to a family trust.

Perry, with the guid­ance (of a sort) of Gram, his friend Keith, his boss Gary, and Cherry the Con­ve­nience store clerk, Perry slowly works to improve his life. He starts work­ing through his lot­tery list which includes a big tv, a trip to Hawaii, Fixing up Yo (Keiths beaten up Toyota Truck), and so on.

He starts moving up at his job (a local fish­ing store) by giving good advice to the owner, and help­ing the sales grow. He gains respect from those he works with, as well as the locals. As his family applies more and more pres­sure on Perry, he decides what to do with the money.

I didn’t like the writ­ing style of this book. I tried and I tried, and even now the writ­ing still bugs me. I know it’s sup­posed to be writ­ten as a nar­ra­tive from Perry, but it’s just so … simple. Things are repeated mul­ti­ple times, the sen­tences are short and mun­dane, and there are no less than a bajil­lion ref­er­ences to “they would not like that.” I refuse to explain that fur­ther. If you read the book, you’ll know what I’m talk­ing about. The chap­ters are short and much of the story is … boring. There’s a lot of filler in which the nuggets have to shine through in order to be recognized.

Having said all that, I enjoyed Lot­tery. It’s not ground-​breaking, nor will it win any awards in my book. It isn’t going on my favorites list by any means, but I liked it all the same. It’s a real under­dog feel-​good every­one gets theirs sort of story that you just want to read some­times. It made me laugh, it made my sad, and it made me smile. It hooked me by the end, and that’s the impor­tant part. Once I got past the fluff, there was a really good story beneath it all.

If you’re in the mood for an under­dog book, this is the one to read. Every­one gets what they deserve, it makes you warm and fuzzy on the inside, and it comes with one of the best hedge­stone mes­sage ever: “Don’t be smart”

6/10