The Westing Game: By Ellen Raskin

The first time I read The Westing Game I was in fifth or sixth grade. I absolutely loved it! I love to read, so I was thrilled to get the assignment back in the day. Clearly, this makes me a bit of a geek, but I could care less. To further cement me into the geek category, some of my favorite movies include Star Wars, Jurassic Park, anything with Jackie Chan, and Big Trouble in Little China, which I got for Christmas on blue-ray- score! I also still watch cartoons, and my current favorites are Avatar: The Last Airbender and Phineas and Ferb. But I digress.

The Westing Game first introduced me to the who-done-it genre, which later led me to Agatha Christie, whom I adore and still read to this day. So, whoever the teacher was that made me read The Westing Game, I thank you.
When I was re-reading this book, I started to remember bits and pieces of it. It made me a bit nostalgic, and I loved every second of it.

Recently, I read some reviews from first time readers that had me cracking up. Those who were given The Westing Game as a gift or bought it on their own loved it. Those who were forced to read it for a classroom assignment as a whole really didn’t like it. So, I guess my advice is, read it quick! Before some teacher forces you to.

The Westing game involves sixteen people who are invited to the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. Depending on how well they play the Westing Game, which is this very complex game that involves all sorts of high stake, wild and sometimes dangerous situations, will inherit 200 million dollars. The sixteen people are paired off into sets of two- and given clues to try and discover if Westing was killed…or died of natural causes. It is up to the teams to figure this out- and up to you, the reader.

This book reminded me of the movie, Clue (another one of my favorites). The characters are so incredibly diverse and full of oddities that you find yourself second guessing and accusing everyone of committing the crime. And the end of the book just makes it. I think this book is clever, interesting and after reading it the second time around, good enough to read over and over. I highly recommend!