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protoman21's review against another edition
4.0
I have an obsessive personality so this book was dynamite in my hands. I am trying to control myself, but I've already created my first word list. Help me!
ponch22's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent book which makes Professional Scrabble as exciting as any other sporting event.... Made me want to try to find a local Scrabble club to start playing competitively when I first read this in college a decade ago (did I really just write that?!) I never would have memorized all the legal 2-letter words had it not been for this book!
hectaizani's review against another edition
3.0
Slow at times, Word Freak, is the story of one man's quest to climb the ranks in competitive Scrabble. Stefan Fatsis is a sports writer for The Wall Street Journal, who thought it would be interesting to do a story about a little-known sport. I for one had no idea that there was such a thing as competitive Scrabble. Apparently, there is and the players take it very seriously.
Fatsis gets completely sucked in by what most consider a simple game that families play in their living rooms for fun. In the competition world, however, winning is everything and the word lists are carefully vetted. I found this book interesting but challenging to read. It goes into excruciating detail about the history of the game and Fatsis' journey while well-written can be boring. I'm not a big sports fan in general, and I guess that extends to board games as well.
Fatsis gets completely sucked in by what most consider a simple game that families play in their living rooms for fun. In the competition world, however, winning is everything and the word lists are carefully vetted. I found this book interesting but challenging to read. It goes into excruciating detail about the history of the game and Fatsis' journey while well-written can be boring. I'm not a big sports fan in general, and I guess that extends to board games as well.
plesti's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to love this book. Initially, it grabbed me. However, there were several chapters that got too bogged down in the minutiae of Scrabble. The eccentricities of the Scrabble culture was fascinating, and the history of the game was really interesting. I found myself skimming over a lot of the content; that is not typical for me.
margocandela's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this book! I took my time reading it because I didn't want it to end and even though Scrabble is only a game, it's one that I had no idea was so complicated and nuanced...but I know enough not to play it since I'm a terrible speller. Also enjoyed the documentary.
stevensawtelle's review against another edition
1.0
I couldn't make it more than two chapters - way too much focus on biographies of characters for my taste. I was interested in the idea of the mechanics of competitive Scrabble and not a life story of the players. It's possible it gets there eventually but I was too bored to care
super_cooper's review against another edition
Just too cumbersome to read - with all the words played and discussed. Very slow too.
liketheday's review against another edition
3.0
think the best parts of this book were the games themselves; I enjoyed seeing strange words score lots of points and especially to see an interesting board layout. But I also thought it was interesting to see what sorts of people are the high-rated experts in competitive Scrabble... Fatsis focuses on some of the craziest people, though he insists that there are sane people who are good at Scrabble.
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j45rpm's review against another edition
4.0
I didn't expect a book on competitive Scrabble players to be this interesting or this alarming. What begins as a literary endeavor for the author--exploring the world of competitive Scrabble so he could write a book about it--at some point turned into a Scrabble obsession of his own. Written in a gonzo journalism style, author Stefan Fatsis went from writing about the neuroses and peccadilloes of some of the top Scrabble players to developing his own. The book is as much about the danger of developing unhealthy obsessions as it is about Scrabble.