The Lottery by Patricia Wood

Copyright: 2008
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Genre: fiction
Pages: audio
Author's Website
My rating: 5/5

Simple Description: 
Perry L. Crandall is not retarded, he scored a 76 on an intelligence test.  Perry L. Crandall is just slow.   Perry lives with his Grandma and works at a local marine supply shop in their town.  They have their routine and tend to do the same things every day.  When his Gram dies, Perry continues to follow the same routine as much as he can even though he has to move.   He still plays the lottery every week until the week he wins 12 million dollars.   Up till this point his brothers and his Mom have not been an active part in his life.  He knows who they are, but they don't care to spend time with him.  That all changes once they realize Perry has won the lottery and they try and figure out how to get Perry to give them all the money.

Perry has some close friends, Gary who owns the supply store he works at and Keith.  As Grandma would say, Keith is rude and crude.  However, that's ok, because it turns out that Keith is a great guy.  Perry also likes Cherry, a cashier at a local store he shops at and soon they form a closer relationship too.

While Perry is not the most intelligent guy according to an IQ test, he ends up being an amazing business man, something he thinks is "So cool!".

While his family begs for money and tries to take advantage of him, his friends don't ask for anything and try to protect Perry from his greedy family.


Now what you really want to know....my thoughts: 
As you can see from my rating, I loved this book.  I was torn with giving this book a full 5/5 but in the end decided it was worth it.  This is the type of book that makes you feel good.  Some of the characters are horribly and you want to kick them (or worse).   Those would be Perry's family, other than Gram and Gramps.  However you can't help loving his friends.  His friends never once tried to take advantage of him or get him to spend money on them.  They also tried to protect him from his family and help him do w hat was best for him.

In the end, after being involved in Perry's life for a bit, you start to question what one needs in life.  Do we need all the material items? Do we really need 12 million dollars? Is working for what you have more important?  These are all things you end up thinking abut while reading this book.   This is mostly why the book gets such a high rating.  It really makes you think about what is important in life.  

I also can't help loving Keith. Keith is not the type of person I would normally love and think was great, but he really grows on you and deep down you know he's a great guy.


I listened to the audio version of this book based on a recommendation from my Mom.  The narrator is Paul Michael.  I think he does an excellent job with this one.  He does change his voice for the difference characters and it works well.  I would definitely recommend the audio version for this book.


 This audio book was rented from my local library.