The Wishing Game, by Meg Shaffer (Ballantine)
I was intrigued by the premise of an updated Roald Dahl’s Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory with emphasis on the plight of kids stuck in the
fosterage system. As much as I was predisposed to like this book, especially in
light of it earning “Best Book of the Year,” I found in it one disappointment
after another.
First, the protagonist: Lucy Hart, rejected by her family in
favor of her chronically ill older sister, ought to have been a sympathetic
viewpoint character. She has gone from one miserable life situation to another.
As a child, though, she had the gumption to run away to the island fortress
(Clock Island, site of the eponymous, wildly popular children’s book series
penned by the mysterious recluse, Jack Masterson) and demand to become his
apprentice. Of course, this did not go well, although she, Jack, and gifted
cover artist Hugo have never forgotten one another. At the opening of the book,
Lucy is working at a dead-end job as a teacher’s aide. She’s barely able to
make rent, let alone provide a suitable home for Christopher, the foster kid
she’s determined to adopt. Herein lies my initial and enduring inability to
connect with Lucy. She seems to be no more emotionally mature than an average
adolescent, even more so when she decides that the only solution to her life
problems is to enter and win a fabulous prize offered by Jack, the only copy of
his unpublished next Clock Island novel. Her wish appears to be coming true
when she is selected as a finalist and travels to Clock Island.
Aside from one writer to another: One copy?? Give me
a break! No agent, editor, publisher, publicist, beta reader, copy editor,
proofreader, online writers group, professional association, or trusted friend
(looking at you, Hugo) would ever allow such irresponsibility as printing out one
copy and then destroying all the files of the previous versions (or
the equivalent typewritten manuscripts). (At the beginning of my writing career,
I typed out drafts (at least three) with carbon paper and kept them all, using
them as show and tell for school presentations.)
Second aside: many aspects of this novel read as if written
by someone ignorant of the publishing business, yet Jack is a many-times-over
best seller, supposedly with an agent and editor with whom he’s had a long
relationship. It didn’t take long for me to suspect that the naïveté was on the
part of this book’s author. I confess to a prejudice against “Creative Writing”
folks who all too often have no clue about how genre storytelling works. I can’t
think of another explanation for the prevailing ignorance.
These issues paled beside the huge red flags. Here are but a few: Lucy decides that the key to happiness is to adopt a kid. Other than the limited, structured interactions with students her job, she has no experience with parenting. Her interactions with Christopher come across as sugar-coated wish fulfillment (except for a few small afterthought details in the last chapter). There’s no chemistry between the two of them; their stereotyped interactions could have come straight out of 1950s family sitcoms. As Lucy’s history is revealed, it’s clear that because she felt unloved as a child, her solution is to shower another child with the love she never received. Not to resolve her own issues, not to learn to love (and forgive) herself, not to let go of her resentment of her sister and parents.
