The Lottery - the review

The premise is intriguing - a young man with an intellectual disability wins the state lottery. I wouldn't call the writing impressive and there are a lot of similarities to Forrest Gump. It was however a quick enjoyable read that I recommended for people to read.

It's a heartwarming story and although the characters are not deep, they are lovable. I would like to think that people reading this story would end with the knowledge that having a lesser intellect does not make you worth less than anyone else. I would also like to think that it would give the reader an appreciation of how to treat an individual with an intellectual or other disability (or at least how not to treat them). These pieces are in the book, but the simplicity of the novel and the way it is written may easily allow readers to overlook the need to carry this further than to the protagonist.

The first thing that I did when I checked out this book was to read the negative reviews. It is something that I often do, but there weren't many for this one. Most of the negatives point to the fact that characters are one-dimensional and the story seemed ready made for television. I really don't feel that this is a fair representation of the book. It is written in the first person by the main character. I think it highly likely that the world might appear to be more black and white to this character than to other individuals. The author has extensively studied people with various disabilities and I don't think that this effect was so much a result of poor writing but an intentional view of the character.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and easy to put down and pick up where you left off, which is important when you have two babies. I would recommend this book especially to younger people still in public school and hope it has the intended effect on the audience. I would recommend it to the rest of you, too.

Earlier in this blog I wrote that I intend to write a book about a hero with Ds. If my story even comes close to the way this one came out I would be pleased with it.