"Word Freak" by Stefan Fatsis

“Word Freak” is the real-life story of Stefan looking into the world of professional Scrabble playing. Stefan starts looking into it with a small degree of interest but then he started playing Scrabble himself and that is when his small hobby turned into something he spent most of his time on. Stefan first realized this after he watched an entire tournament play out. He then knew that he wanted to be as good as these Scrabble fanatics. Stefan starts to play the game more and more, eventually going to tournaments and clubs. The main club that Stefan goes to is the Manhattan Scrabble Club. For the most part Stefan only plays at tournaments or one of the clubs but once or twice he goes to someone’s house. For instance, he was invited to play at the house of one of the makers of Scrabble. His goal is to win the biggest Scrabble tournament hosted in the world.

One of the things that I enjoyed about this book is that Stefan meets a wide range of interesting people, including many of the top Scrabble players. For example, G.I. Joel is somewhat of a friend of Stefan but doesn’t call him buddy or anything. G.I. Joel is basically a lover of Scrabble and was in the final round against Matt Graham, another player, in one of the tournaments at the beginning of the book. Matt is a pretty good Scrabble player but takes the game too seriously. He takes so many pills to increase his performance; it’s scary. Marlon Hill is also weird but not in an unhealthy way. For the most part Marlon is eccentric and a trash talker. Joe Edley, who was national champion twice, as well as the associate director of the National Scrabble Association, helps Stefan out once he starts to love to play Scrabble. Edley was probably the most helpful to Stefan of all the people in the book. The book also includes some facts such as when Stefan looks into the history of how Scrabble started. He lists facts such as how they started producing the game and the major people who started it up.

The book is for the most part believable even though there are some weird things in it. The only reason I think that the book is somewhat fiction is because of the weird conversations that just randomly pop up in this documentary. I’m sure that some of the comments didn’t exactly happen since the conversations that come are sometimes random or you can’t tell why it started.

In reading this book you can learn quite a bit about Scrabble tactics and gameplay. He made sure that people who were reading it could tell if a word played was accepted in Scrabble or a made up word. Some of the words that he uses in the book are either not real or just not accepted by the National Scrabble Association and tournaments. He points out all the words you shouldn’t use from the book at the end in a list. Some of the Scrabble games that he plays he gives a good description of what is going on but sometimes I feel that once or twice he leaves out enough of the game so that it just is like a single paragraph about what is happening in the game before it is finished.

Overall the book is pretty good and is captivating, especially if you play Scrabble.

>>Buy “Word Freak” by Stefan Fatsis