Cover Image: The Plainview Lottery

The Plainview Lottery

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Member Reviews

Plenty of fun. There is sharp humor and social satire to be had.
Many thanks to BooksGoSocial and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

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This book was interesting. It was a quick read with a good moral but it felt preachy and heavy-handed. The old-fashioned tone was unique and even though you know how it's going to end from the very beginning, it was an enjoyable read.

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A very good idea for a moral tale, but it reads like a first or second draft. I got surprised by the repeats of the dialogues, on and on, and I expected more from the plot line. This would be better perhaps as a short story.
Many thanks to the publishers, the author and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

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Worth reading just for the uniqueness of it, but could have used one more round of editing. Human nature explored.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC copy

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This is a literary fiction humor story and is a good book with a good story, but it really isn’t my favorite humor type of book, yet it is well written. The story overall is a good one though and interesting, though I felt too long and could have told the same story while being less wordy. It was too political for my liking too. Readers enter Plainview, an American town, that is a place we’d all like to live. Then one day it changes when some strangers enter town with some gold bars and they plan to have a lottery. The gold will be the grand prize. So “Lottery Fever” starts to cause tons of trouble for the people in this town. Finding out what is happening is part of the story, which is a bit of an economic satire. I didn’t find this story interesting enough and found it difficult to continue reading. But, it is promising enough others will enjoy it.

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The Plainview Lottery is a cautionary tale. Plainview is a content peaceful town until one day, some strangers come to town and offer a lottery. Greed gets the best of the townspeople as they drain their savings in hopes of winning. The lottery is obviously a scam. It's a tale we've all heard before to be content with what you have. The story was just too long and repetitive. Otherwise, not a bad read. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

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Worth reading just for the uniqueness of it, but could have used one more round of editing. Human nature explored.

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I really struggled with this one. It is a plodding narrative that says nothing and moves so slowly that i could catch flies in my sleep. Honestly I have no idea what this book brings to the literary world. It is pages and a pages of people queuing for lottery tickets and precious little else. a Political Satire according to its metadata yet it fulfils none of the identifying factors for satire "the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues" I certainly didn't smile let alone laugh I am sorry this just does not work

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The Plainview Lottery is a cautionary tale. Plainview is a content peaceful town. One day, some strangers come to town and offer a lottery. Greed and avarice get the better of the townspeople as they drain their savings in hopes of winning. This lottery is obviously a scam. It's a tale we've all heard. Be content with what you have. Don't want things you don't need. The story was just too long and repetitive. Otherwise, not a bad read. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

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Thanks to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for giving a free copy of this book to review.

On the face of it, ‘The Plainview Lottery’ is a cautionary tale about greed and the susceptability of the human condition.

Plainview is a sleepy, content little town. All that changes when a few strangers arrive in the town overnight and set up a lottery. The promise of untold riches brings a gleam to every citizen’s eye and soon, the town capitulates to avarice. Regular, honest citizens give up their responsibilities and drain their savings in the pursuit of wealth, as they buy stacks of tickets in the vain hope that they will win.

As one might correctly assume, the game is rigged from the start and the strangers are only out to make a quick buck.

There was a lot of potential to the story, but Markas Dvaras squandered it all by settling for tacky prose and repetitive plot. The dialogue too, lacks life, as characters speak as if they’re reading lines from a script.

If done well, this could have been a wonderfully complex tale with rich, fully realised characters. As it were, the characters were not fleshed out and so, lack any depth. They’re more caricatures than people and as a result, you feel little empathy for them. Given that this was meant to teach a moral or two, the book fails as it, like I mention, does not draw any empathy from the reader.

For the novel idea and the interesting start to the book, I give this 2.5 stars.

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Ok, I think this should have been a short story - or novella at most. I'm 20% in and already it feels like it's dragging and there's nowhere to go that isn't obvious. It's entirely possible there are hidden surprises here, but frankly the flat, one-dimensional characters and flat, one-dimensional tale thus far are not enough to drive my curiosity to find out... Despite the intriguing concept, this one just did not appeal to me at all.

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A good book with a good message, felt a tad wordy in places that made it a dry read. Overall worth reading.

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A very different read to my usual choices, but I ended up on an enjoyable journey with this one. A bit of a reminder for us about want versus need!

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A charming fable-like story. Took me a while to get into the style of writing, but I did end up liking it. I know no one really talks like the characters did in the book, but go with it, and you might just like it. The people weren't particularly well fleshed out, but the town itself seemed like a great character.

I did wish the book would have been tighter and more concise. It did get a little difficult making it all the way to the finish, but I was curious enough to want to find out how it all ended.

The story kind of reminded me of the Simpsons monorail episode :)

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This book had a good concept. Not wanting more than you need. The book makes this clear, but I felt that it was too long. The book was a good read but shorter and more concise would have been a great read. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

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