Lottery by Patricia Wood

I looooved this book. It is the story of Perry L. Crandall (his Gram tells him the L stands for "lucky"), who is NOT retarded. His IQ is 76 and in order to be classified as retarded, it must be 75 or below. For some reason, I really enjoy books from an autistic / mentally challenged perspective. This was a super quick read - I finished it within 24 hours.

Perry's Gram taught him everything. One of those things was to play the lottery. After Gram dies, Perry wins $12 million. All of his unscrupulous and uncaring family members begin coming out of the woodwork and try to take advantage of him. I laughed out loud when his "cousin-brother" left him at his house (while trying to get him to sign Power of Attorney) and Perry is trying to hide dog poop under his couch.

I didn't really love the ending and I thought it was sadder than it really had to be, but that may be what the author wanted. I was upset that his family got any money but I guess that is what makes the story even more heartwarming, since Perry didn't actually need the money to be happy. 4 and 1/2 stars