Lottery by Patricia Wood

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Perry's IQ is only 76, but he's not stupid. His grandmother taught him everything he needs to know to survive: She taught him to write things down so he won't forget them. She taught him to play the lottery every week. And, most important, she taught him whom to trust. When Gram dies, Perry is left orphaned and bereft at the age of thirty-one. Then his weekly Washington State Lottery ticket wins him 12 million dollars, and he finds he has more family than he knows what to do with. Peopled with characters both wicked and heroic who leap off the pages, Lottery is a deeply satisfying, gorgeously rendered novel about trust, loyalty, and what distinguishes us as capable.

I nearly didn't take this book home to read, because I thought it might make me too sad. I'm glad I decided that being too sad over someone being retarded ("I am NOT retarded") and ripped off by his family wasn't a good enough reason to not read it, because this story was really heartwarming.

It was one of those books that you think is going to follow a simple lighthearted path to the end, but it ends up having more to it than that. There was more to Perry than a slow mentality - he is kind and observant and funny and loving and there is a lot he could teach others instead of the other way around.

I started to get annoyed that part of the story where the family plots to steal his money was taking so long, but then I realised that wasn't the main point, it was giving us more insight in to who Perry was through his memories and musings. 

Although some of his real family are not very nice people at all, he shows that sometimes family are those that you choose as well as those that you are born with. There is also a very good reminder to not always judge a book by it's cover, so to speak.