Lottery Is A Winner By Linda Amstutz on Jan 23, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Perry Crandall and Forrest Gump have a lot in common. They are both slow. They are both functional. They are both lucky. That's about where the similarities end. Perry Crandall is a nice person, compared to the book-version of Gump, where he was not the most likeable character. Perry Crandall is surrounded by a greedy, mean family, while Gump had the nicest of moms. Gump does not get the girl of his dreams in the end (SPOILER ALERT) while Perry Crandall does.

I read a review that described LOTTERY as being a novel about a man with an IQ of76 winning the lottery. Since I play the lottery every week, this tickled my fancy. Would someone with such a low IQ do better managing his winnings than all those winners I see on the news? I had to read the book to find out.

The plot was interesting, sure enough, but after the first several chapters, I tired of Perry telling me what he thinks things mean. Like when another character does, or says, something, Perry tells us that when people do that (or say that), they really mean XXXXXXX. That got on my nerves.

And things wrapped up a little too neatly at the end of the book. I would have liked a few more turns and complicated twists. I like a winding story.

Still, the book was an easy read and entertaining. It didn't change my life, but ir brightened up a few hours.