I had to read this book and do a evaluation/summary and kind of analyze it while summarizing it. It is not complete, but if I can get some grammar errors fixed it would help.
The Westing Game, written by Ellen Raskin, won the 1979 Newberry Medal for distinguished writing. With twenty characters in the cast, this intriguing mystery novel includes many twists and turns that keep the reader guessing until the very end. Coupled with many underlying themes including but not limited to patriotism, finding ones self through others, and looking past differences. The story is a perfect representation of how people interpret information differently and how appearances can often be deceiving.
The story starts out with the delivery of six letters signed by Barney Northrup, to six different households on the Fourth of July. The letters offer a once in a lifetime chance to rent an apartment at the new and luxurious Sunset Towers, located on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Sunset Towers, built mostly of glass, stands five stories high, but oddly faces east instead of west where the sun actually sets. Barney Northrup manages to rent all the apartments out to the six hand selected households, which includes the Wexler family, the Theodorakis family, the Hoo family, Judge Josie-Jo Ford, secretary Sydelle Pulaski, and dressmaker Flora Baumbach. The building also accommodates the businesses of Jake Wexler, George Theodorakis, and James Hoo and employs a cleaner, Berthe Erica Crow, a door attendant, Sandy McSouthers, and a delivery boy, Otis Amber.
Simultaneously, on Halloween the characters share a defining moment when they see smoke rising from the supposedly empty Westing house, which symbolically signals the beginning of the game that no one is aware of just then. As a result, rumors spread that Sam Westing, the rich industrialist who owned Westing Paper Products, went missing a long time ago and his dead rotting body could be in the house. On a dare, Turtle Wexler goes into the Westing house where she discovers what she thinks is the body of Sam Westing, dressed up like Uncle Sam. The next morning, the newspaper reports the death of Sam Westing, but nothing about how.
Later on, sixteen of the tenants and three of the workers at Sunset Towers received letters inviting them to the reading of Sam Westing's will, as did Angela Wexler's fiancé D. Denton Deere. After the heirs gathered at the appointed time in the Westing house, attorney E.J. Plum read the will and testament, where Sam Westing revealed, "I did not die of natural causes. My life was taken from me-by one of you!" The will proceeds to ask the sixteen heirs to play a game in which they have to solve the mystery of his murder. The lawyer then splits up the heirs into eight groups of two, in which each group received an envelope containing a check for ten thousand dollars and a set of clues in which no two sets were alike. The will states: "Spend it wisely or go for broke. May God thy gold refine" and "It is not what you have, it's what you don't have that counts."
Meanwhile, the "Westing game" had begun and the groups started to examine their clues. One of the authors themes became apparent in how all the groups interpreted the clues differently. For instance, one group thought that "Take stock in America, go for broke" from the will meant to invest the money in the stock market, so they did. Yet, other groups had interpreted their clues to represent people's names, apartment numbers, and even chemical equations, which none of these were right.
Aside from a motive to win the game, the defining development of characters were initially presented in terms of a single trait of some sort making it easier to tell who's who in this large cast. Many of them hide secrets about themselves and present a false identity to those around them. Although, the pairing of certain characters leads to conflicts it helps them find themselves through each other and develop new perspectives about one another. Through the conflicts of the game the heirs end up forming friendships that last forever
Finally, the heirs meet back at the Westing house to share their answers, but nobody has correctly solved the mystery. Sandy McSouthers ends up falling to the floor, lying motionless, until he is pronounced dead. The heirs start pointing fingers, but eventually they find out that Sandy McSouthers died of natural causes due to an illness he has been stricken with. Before Sandy died he had whispered to turtle: "You still can win. I hope you do."
The book is written in third person, which allows the author to selectively introduce characters and related information at different times. For example the bomb at Shin Hoo's Restaurant is described giving the reader an insight to the make up of the bomb and the anticipation of it going off, but the first explosion that went off had no warning which was more surprising. Realtor Barney Northrup shows the first apartment to the Wexler family, which he tells them "the rent here is cheaper than what your old house costs in upkeep." This statement had me baffled until the end of the book, when an explanation to how he knew their costs was revealed.
Greetings!
I'd be happy to help you with some editing. Here are some suggestions for you:
Coupled with many underlying themes including, but not limited to, patriotism, finding ones self through others, and looking past differences. - This is a sentence fragment. Instead of "Coupled with" you could say "It contains..."; also, add the commas I included.
Simultaneously, on Halloween the characters share a defining moment when they see smoke rising from the supposedly empty Westing house, which symbolically signals the beginning of the game that no one is aware of just then. - This is confusing. What does "Simultaneously" refer to? They aren't receiving the letters (previous paragraph) simultaneously with seeing the smoke; did you mean they all saw the smoke simultaneously? If so, it would sound better just to say "The characters share a defining moment on Halloween when ..."
Later on, sixteen of the tenants and three of the workers at Sunset Towers received letters inviting them to the reading of Sam Westing's will, as did Angela Wexler's fiancé D. Denton Deere. After the heirs gathered at the appointed time in the Westing house, attorney E.J. Plum read the will and testament, where Sam Westing revealed, "I did not die of natural causes. My life was taken from me-by one of you!" - You have switched from present tense to past tense; in the next paragraph, you switch back again. Stick with present tense throughout.
Yet, other groups had interpreted their clues to represent people's names, apartment numbers, and even chemical equations; none of these was right.
You've got a good start; keep up the good work!
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
