The Big Game of Everything | 
 enlarge | Author: Chris Lynch
Publisher: HarperTeen
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy New: $7.90
You Save: $9.09 (54%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 204301
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0060740345
EAN: 9780060740344
ASIN: 0060740345
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
You have to love your family. You do, even if you don't, right? You don't have to understand them or play tennis with them, but you have to love them. It's a rule, and it's the kind of rule you don't break unless you're some kind of animal. My brother happens to be some kind of animal. My sister rides this sweet gold Honda scooter and has amazing hair. You'd hate her. My parents are vegetarian let-the-sunshine-in freaks. Lovable freaks but freaks all the same. My grandfather possesses a shocking comb-over, a kilt, about half of his original marbles, and his own golf complex. This summer, we are all working for him. It is going to be two hot, lucrative, carefree months of paradise. Or, possibly something else.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A wonderful, funny and touching novel that will remind readers of what's really important in life November 19, 2008
Thirteen-year-old Jock thinks his family is incredibly weird. His hippy, vegetarian parents named him Union Jack (though at age six he wanted it to be pronounced Onion Jock). They insist that everyone --- including their own kids --- call them by their first names.
Leonard and Peach run a barbershop/manicurist/palm reading establishment called Fame&Fortune, but they don't give a hoot about making lots of money. They're the complete opposite of Jock's grandfather, who believes that the key to happiness is cold hard cash. He owns and manages his own golf course, all 13 holes of it (Grampus is in the process of constructing the 14th one himself).
Jock's younger brother, Egon, takes after his grandfather in the money grubbing area, but is about a hundred times worse. Another personality flaw of his is that he takes great pleasure in picking on Jock (or Dingleberry, as he calls him), both physically and verbally, though he is the first one to come to Jock's rescue when bullies like the Noblett brothers threaten him.
Despite his eccentric family, Jock looks forward to the approaching summer vacation as he and Egon will work at the golf course. Jock loves the compound, as they call it, and thinks it's the greatest place in the world, owned and managed by the greatest person in the world. Even though the pay isn't very consistent, and he sometimes has to clean the public restrooms, Jock is happiest when at the golf course. He doesn't even like to play the sport, though he enjoys hitting balls at the driving range. But then something happens that changes everything.
Grampus suffers a stroke, and his loved ones discover that the golf course is failing financially. As he slowly starts to recover, Grampus comes to see life in a new light. Maybe having money isn't so important after all. The entire family pitches in to save the course and, in the process, brings a fresh glow and a new atmosphere to the compound.
Jock even begins to see some change in himself and digs up the courage to stand up to one of the Noblett brothers. His intense and discovery-filled summer proves that having money and objects aren't the important things in life; love and family are, even relatives as strange as Jock's.
Chris Lynch's latest book is a hilarious look at a world that has gone crazy with mixed-up priorities, valuing money and toys over family and friends. Lynch's sense of humor really brings this meaningful story to life, along with a cast of colorful characters. Jock especially shines, with a wisdom beyond his years and a special gift of insight into others. THE BIG GAME OF EVERYTHING is a wonderful, funny and touching novel that will remind readers of what's really important in life.
--- Reviewed by Chris Shanley-Dillman, author of FINDING MY LIGHT and THE BLACK POND
Courtesy of Teens Read Too October 24, 2008
Jock has lined up the perfect summer job working at his grandfather's golf course. He figures work will probably be sporadic and he looks forward to racing around the greens in one of the golf carts from Grampus's mighty fleet. But sure enough, just like in golf, he slices.
It turns out he and his bumbling, antagonistic, younger brother, Egon, are the only caretakers Grampus has hired for the summer. And the mighty fleet turns out to be only two golf carts, and Grampus uses one of them for his dates with the lesson of the week. Like Jock, Grampus embraces the sun and heat, and somehow it's always Jock, not Egon, who gets the chore of rubbing sunscreen onto Grampus's back so he can work wearing only a kilt, creating the 13th hole of the course with his enormous digger.
Is this crazy loon the same grandfather Jock has always admired? Is his life still the life Jock envies and yearns for?
When two old friends of Grampus' show up, flashing their bling and offering to purchase his cherished snooker table, Jock begins to see a side of Grampus that he's never seen before. Leonard, Jock's flakey barbershop dad, who tries to convince people not to cut their hair; Peaches, his psychic, palm-reading mother; and even Grammus, Jock's rich and independent grandmother, surprise Jock as they come together to help Grampus save his golf course.
Jock finds out that yes, life's about playing the big game of everything, but more than that, life is about family.
In THE BIG GAME OF EVERYTHING, Chris Lynch finds humor in the mundane, and turns the ordinary into the unexpected. This novel is great for a lazy afternoon when what you want most is a quiet, calming read, with laugher sprinkled throughout.
Reviewed by: Cana Rensberger
 Enchanting Review: The Big Game of Everything September 24, 2008
THE BIG GAME OF EVERYTHING
CHRIS LYNCH
Contemporary YA
Rating: 3 Enchantments
Union Jack (pronounced Onion Jock) is a relatively normal guy except for the fact that his family is rather eccentric. If one couldn't already tell from Jock's unusual name, the people Jock resides with lean a little more towards loony. Jock's father Leonard, a hairdresser, probably spends more time trying to convince his customers to not get their hair cute, and Jock's younger brother Egon, Jock's spokesdevil, is physically larger than Jock and enjoys terrorizing him and other people (in a friendly way of course). But through all this strangeness, Jock still loves his family because, well, they're his family.
If there's one person in Jock's family he admires the most, it is his Grampus. This is thy Jock looks forward to a summer of helping run Grampus' not-quite-finished golf course. But Jock's not going to get the simple summer he expected, especially after two of Grampus' old friends show up at the golf course. With the introduction of The Big Game of Everything, Jock's relationship with Grampus as well as his view of the world shifts, and it's up to him to discover what really is most important to him.
THE BIG GAME OF EVERYTHING turned out to be only a mediocre story, which was a disappointment to me. Based on the back-cover summary, I was expecting a laugh-out-loud story that was meaningful, but instead, I got only a couple of chuckles and some confusion. Part of this is a result of the wacky characters; I felt the characters' eccentricities worked against the story because they never truly gained my sympathy. The plot was pretty boring most of the time as well, which made me lose interest in the story most of the time. I think that Lynch was trying to create a more thought-provoking novel, but THE BIG GAME OF EVERYTHING failed at this because I couldn't concentrate long enough on the story to really think about it. On the positive side, the weird characters did lead to some humorous situations and there was one exceptionally well-written scene towards the ending. However, for the most part, I felt like I was missing the big idea which was never explicitly stated. If you're the type of reader who likes to look for meanings deep within stories, then you should read this book, but otherwise, I do not recommend it.
Chris Lynch is the author of several other novels for young adults including FREEWILL, SHADOW BOXER, and SLOT MACHINE. You can visit him online at his website: www.chrislynchbooks.com
Rachael Stein
Enchanting Reviews
September 2008
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