The Cardturner

by Louis Sachar

Grade: To Own
Story: Alton Richards becomes cardturner for his very, very rich, very blind, slowly dying uncle who's totally obsessed with bridge. Which means he  informs his uncle which cards he has, and then plays whatever card he's told to play.

Review: I really love books that make me interested in a particular subject. This one is bridge, which I've been interested in, mostly because of Agatha Christie. Thus the "To Own".

Otherwise, it's fun. Much better than I expected, actually.

...

Ok, I'm running out of thoughts here. It's getting late and I'm tired. So: summary. Liked the characters, especially his uncle Trapp and his little sister. But also his crazy (as in actually mentally insane) love-interest Toni, and the slightly awkward friendship with Cliff. The bridge stuff never gets quite as exciting as the Hikaru no Go comics, speaking of books based off games, but it's still fun.


I like this description:

"Have you ever been in a situation where you've been with someone for a while and you don't know that person's name? It's too late to ask, but you know the longer you go without asking, the more awkward it will become. So even though you feel really stupid, you finally just have to bite the bullet and say, "By the way, what's your name?" (pg. 7)
I get this fairly frequently and it's horrible. But I've never heard it described before.


So that's that. Sorry, my ever dear non-existent readers, for the lousy review.

P.S. The only other book I can think of with an actually mentally insane love-interest is Black Jack by Leon Garfield.