Beginner's Luck: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: golf money, yard person, Officer Rich, Pastor Costello, Yoo Hoo (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Hallie Palmer, a 16-year-old gambling whiz kid, gets kicked off her Ohio high school's soccer team for skipping class, she quits school altogether. With her parents and six siblings breathing down her neck, she also decides to leave her chaotic home, hiding in the summerhouse of the Stocktons-the delightfully quirky family for whom she's just started doing yard work. Pedersen (Going Away Party), a wunderkind in her own right who had a seat on the floor of the American Stock Exchange at the age of 20, uses her financial background and expertise as a childhood card shark to concoct this buoyantly zany coming-of-age tale. Hallie is at first perplexed and then captivated by the Dickensian residents of the Stockton manse. There's the enthusiastically eccentric, multi-cause obsessed Olivia, the 62-year-old grande dame of the family who takes care of her Alzheimer's-afflicted husband; Bernard, her foppish son, who owns an antique store and is a gourmet cook of outlandish theme meals; his partner, Mr. Gil, the self-proclaimed "normal one," who is into "tooth prognostication"; and Rocky, a mixed drink-guzzling chimpanzee trained to work with paraplegics. Pedersen has a knack for capturing tart teenage observations in witty asides, and Hallie's na‹vet‚, combined with her gambling and numbers savvy, make her a winning protagonist. As the first trade paperback original in the five-year-old Ballantine Reader's Circle series, this novel is funny and just quirky enough to become a word-of-mouth favorite. A preview of Pedersen's next book, an unlikely romantic comedy featuring a terminally ill Scotsman and a dying cloistered nun, also shows great promise.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Sixteen-year-old Hallie Palmer is bored with school and alienated from her family. She spends her spare time at the racetrack or crashing the secret, weekly poker game in the church basement. When she drops out of school, loses her savings at the track, runs away from home, and then is accused of robbery, it seems things have nowhere to go but up--and that's exactly what happens in this novel from Oxygen TV host Pedersen. Temporarily homeless and short of cash, Hallie takes a job as "yard person" for the quirky Stocktons and winds up finding the family she's always wanted. Olivia Stockton, a free-spirited, 60-something radical, schools Hallie in feminism, politics, and literature, while her son, Bertie, and his lover, Gil, introduce her to fine cuisine and culture. Pedersen overdoes the Stocktons' peculiarities--their household includes a bartending chimpanzee--and Hallie's incessant wisecracking soon wears thin. Still, this is a breezy coming-of-age novel with an appealing cast of characters. It's perfect book-club fare, and a reading group guide is included. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345458303
• ISBN-13: 978-0345458308
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #153,677 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kudos from an English Teacher, March 18, 2004

By	Vivian Barnett (East Lansing, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This is a wonderful book to teach to high school students, probably the best I've ever come across. From the teacher's point of view there is symbolism, lovely descriptive writing including some nice similes and metaphors, great characterization, and several themes. Literary references are hidden throughout and thus suggest to the students that knowing poetry, how to write, and about books is not only fun, but can also be quite useful in life. From a students perspective BEGINNER'S LUCK is hilarious, modern, they identify with the characters and conflicts, and there's just enough fairly chaste sex scenes to keep them involved without raising any problems with parents or the school board (though the romance here is extremely mild when you consider what they watch on TV and see in the movies!). My students just loved this book and thanked me for assigning it. They completely understood the emphasis on acceptance, understanding, and the importance of friendship -- things we can never have enough of. I don't believe the novel was written with the intent of being a gold mine for teaching young adults, but then perhaps that's why my students enjoyed it so much. And they're all anxiously awaiting the sequel. In fact, one of the assignemnts was to write an outline for how they would tackle the sequel since the end is left with so many possibilities (much like their lives right now!).

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST BOOK I'VE READ IN YEARS, October 13, 2003

By	Mickey Wallace (Atlanta, Georgia) - See all my reviews

Being a devoted fan of mysteries and science fiction I admit I came to "Beginner's Luck" reluctantly -- it was a double whammy of my mother's book club and extreme boredom while a knee injury healed. HOWEVER, this is one funny and charming book. It's actually hard to say that it's like this or like that. Pederson has the sense of humor of a late night comedian but combines it with believable characters and tons of charm. The scene where Hallie practically falls into a casket at a funeral is especially hilarious. There are so many terrific moments. It will make a great movie or TV series and Robert Downey Jr. should definitely play Bernard. The women in my mom's book club are mostly 50s, and loved the character of Olivia, who is about their age, but it has a lot of appeal for young people. The main character, Hallie, is 16. In fact, it shows young people with realistic problems, but also that teenagers can have fun without sex, drugs, and video games. And (cliche coming) that learning can be fun and actually serve a large purpose in life. Maybe we should make "Beginner's Luck" mandatory reading in all high schools.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quickwitted sarcastic humor , December 24, 2005

By	Gary H. Cassel "Flamingnet.com" (Baltimore, MD, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hallie is a 16 year-old girl who despises the school that she goes to so much that she doesn't bother to show up to 90% of the classes. Most of the time you can find her down at the horse track betting on the ponies, aka earning money to buy a car. Since she lives in a house barely big enough to house the nine that it consists of now, not to mention the new baby on the way, she plans to head to Las Vegas. She is the second oldest and is overlooked up until now,when the attendence officer "Just Call Me Dick" begins to notice that she doesn't come to homeroom, or most of her other classes for that matter. He alerts the ultimate authorities; her parents. They simply retract their offer to help pay for the car and ground her until her grades pull up. Hallie thinks, "Well that's too bad because I'm gone, I'll gamble until I have the money to go to Vegas then, so long Ohio!" Hallie is a gifted card player that goes along with her innate sense of numbers. She doesn't have a gambling problem just does it for the money. An unfortunate loss at the track forces her to take a job as a lawn person in the eccentric household of the Stocktons. This quirky family includes Olivia, the head matron, The Judge her husband, Bernard their son, Gil Bernard's lover, and the ever persistent Rocky the chimp, who is between jobs. Not only are they paying her 12 dollars an hour they soon welcome her into their home with her own room. Her parents want her back but no such luck, she becomes a permanent fixture in the lives of the Stocktons. She is now learning things that she would not otherwise learn, like how to prepare exqusite dishes, little known facts about authors and figure heads. The sarcastic humor, intermixed with exquisite vocabulary, envelope her in Ms. Olivia's rabble rousing and protesting for a greater cause. Olivia soon becomes her tutor that way she will graduate and be able to go to college. Her boyfriend, Craig, even gets along with the Stocktons. This leads to a pinch or romance among all the gambling and clearing of her name. A household that will not be forgotten easily.

Slowly but surely, a quickwitted sarcastic humor takes you into this quirky world of Hallie Palmer. This hold is not relinquished throughout the entire novel. I laughed so hard I cried multiple times. The reader is faced with a gay couple that Hallie coexists with and not all romantic scenes are backstage. For those with improving vocabulary, I suggest a pocket dictionary nearby, just in case. Morals and prejudiced thoughts are faced and delt with making you think about your own beliefs.This book is for those willing to be open-minded to other's thoughts and ideas even though you may have originally rejected them as not part of your beliefs. Not everything is black and white as it might appear, and there are two sides to each argument. It helps to see both.

Reviewed by a student reviewer for Flamingnet Book Reviews
www.flamingnet.com
Preteen, teen, and young adult book reviews and recommendations