The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

In The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer, we follow Lucy Hart. She's a teacher's aide and is struggling financially. She lives with three roommates and struggles to pay the bills. She wants to adopt a boy who is at her school, but there's no way she can manage that financially. But the author of her favorite childhood series of books has come out of retirement and if Lucy can win a contest, she can win the rights to the book and then her financial woes would be over. 

Okay, I liked this book just fine. It was easy to read and I was invested in the outcome of the contest and what would happen to Lucy. I liked Lucy. She seemed to have had a hard life and want to do good despite that. But...

Her behavior with the child she wants to adopt is inappropriate. If an employee at a school acted that way with a child, they should be fired. Honestly. Promising the kid things you know you can't deliver on and constantly hugging them and having them sit on your lap? Egads. He's not a toddler, you know?

And...there's the author character. He writes (again, what I think are inappropriate) letters to his fans who are children and when they run away from home to come live with him, which they think is fine because of the letters he wrote, he calls social services on them. And when this leads to a tragic accident, he just PAYS OFF THE POLICE to cover it up. 

AND. You know what solves Lucy's financial woes? She gets with a partner who has money. *sigh* I guess this is realistic - the only real way to move up the economic ladder in this country is through marriage (don't talk to me about education - you will *probably* make more over your lifetime with a college degree, but you'll also *probably* be paying back student loans for the majority of your working life). But...I sorted of wanted Lucy to figure it out herself, you know?

I don't know, man. This book got my hackles up sometimes. But I finished it and was relatively satisfied with the ending.  You do you.

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

“Bit old school there, yeah? Don’t use a computer?”

 “Too quiet,” Jack said. “I need something loud enough to cover the sound of my characters screaming for help.” (location 1212)

This made me laugh and think about this video about Robin Hobb, a fantasy author who is known for kind of cruel treatment of her beloved characters. 

"...Fact is, I was worried the truth about me would get out, and schools would ban my books. And if you think I’m being paranoid, let me remind you that a cute little book about two male penguins raising a chick is still one of the most banned books in America, Land of the Free.” (location 3358)

True story in my life. I gave a friend And Tango Makes Three as a present at a baby shower and her mother was horrified. 

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

With a long exhalation, he leaned back against the wall between Frankenstein’s Monster, a gentleman’s portrait in top hat and frock coat, and The Bride of Frankenstein, her hair tucked under a black-and-white parasol. (location 502)

...draw him pictures from the stories all the time—the Storm Seller, the Black & White Hat Hotel, all those. (location 1753)

The Black & White Hat Hotel, said the sign on the awning. (location 2223)

The one rule of the Black & White Hat Hotel was that you had to wear a black-and-white hat at all times. (location 2225)

“Very nice,” she said, eyeing an old drawing of a charcoal raven wearing a watercolor red hat. (location 3337)

“That’s Thurl, except with a hat.” (location 3338)

The walls were ocean scenes—boats being skippered by sharks in captains’ hats, octopi knitting fishing nets that caught letters, the letters spelling out Christopher’s name. (location 4064)

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Does this seem like a book you would like to read? Could you look past some of the elements that I called out?