James Browning

Well, you have a Scrabble champion, a boarding school setting, and a discussion of fracking (which spell-check doesn't like any more than the environmentalists). Of course that makes for an interesting start to a book!

Winston is a Scrabble champion. He knows words, lots of words, and the meaning of words - and he's lived so much in the world of Scrabble that he's not so strong at putting them together and writing, or communicating. He is at a boarding school in Pennsylvania on a scholarship, and one of his teachers is the current state poet of Pennsylvania. He rows crew in the very polluted river, and he and his classmates are warned not to smoke in the bathrooms (what is in that water, anyway). His side of the dormitory is always in the dark.

All of these elements lead to one quirky book, which started off very strong, but became a bit disjointed in the middle. I stuck with it (even though I don't have an opinion either way towards Scrabble). It was a good book. Not amazing, but good. There are so many mixed reviews on this that I think this is one that you just have to give a try and judge for yourself.… (meer)