Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I've been a John Grisham fan since his early days, but I'm having trouble getting through this book. It is definitely not one of his best. I thoroughly enjoyed "The Pelican Brief" but I can't see me finishing this one. I just can't get into it. My husband feels exactly the same way. I came here to see if we were the only ones with this opinion, but there are a few others who have the same thoughts.
Rating: 
Summary: Mildly Entertaining
Review: This is the first Grisham book I have read. If it is at all representative of his work, I probalbly won't rush out to buy another. On the positive side, the book does provide a couple of hours of mildly entertaining made-for-tv movie style storyline. Also, Grisham apparntly writes as though he expects nothing from his readers, which makes this book a great one to read while simultaneously holding on a conversation with one's mother in law or while watching a hockey game out corner of one's eye. However, this also makes for a ton of annoying repetition. I noticed there were a few descriptive senetnces that were used over a dozen times in the book (just in case you'd forgotten last time he said it), and overall a lot of wasted ink and paper. The story is not altogether feasible, and I found myself unable to identify with or even feel sympathy for any of the characters. On the one hand you have three prisoners in an ultra-low security federal prison, scamming wealthy gay men out of tons of money, you have their victims (who amazingly seem to live basically the same lives) who are exceptionally naive and perhaps deserve what they are getting, and a hawk presidential candidate who (surprise, surprise) becomes their Brethren's next victim. Essentially each chapter is another episode of the same story until we come to the end, in which. . ., well, if you haven't figured it out yet, i'm certainly not going to ruin for you. It is as though Grisham figured he had to fill up 400+ pages in order to publish this potential pulitzer winner, and rambles on and on like a high school student trying to BS his way through a 1000 word essay. The plot justified only about 150 pages of this book. The rest is just filler. Fortunately, however, one need not invest must time or effort into reading this book, and as a way to kill three or four hours, it's just fine.
Rating:
Summary: Just wasn't what I thought
Review: I have read better books by John Grisham. It might have been the subject matter that disappointed me the most. Once I began reading I did read it to the end but I wasn't impressed with the book at all. The plot was good but the subject matter was not a favorite of mine.I enjoyed The Firm, The Testament, and Pelican Brief much more.
Rating:
Summary: What happened.
Review: This book like all grisham books was great, however on the last page i ask myself what the hell happened, someone please tell me what was going on was the judges starting the same thing over or what, i am stumped.
Rating: 
Summary: I liked it!
Review: This is the fourth John Grisham novel I have read, and I have to say this is my absolute favorite thus far. It was one of those rare books that had me wanting to race through the pages to see what happens next, but at the same time trying to pace & slow myself down so it wouldn't be over too quickly. The co-mingling of the two plots was done very well. I liked all the "inside" CIA operations he detailed and found some of the similarites between the presidential election in the novel to our most recent election very ironic. I also thought there were parts of this book that were outright funny. Best of all, I liked that both the bad guys and the good guy won in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Kept my interest all the way through
Review: The only other Grisham books I've read were The Firm and the The Pelican Brief, both of which I liked and hoped this would be more of the same. I guess I expected something more than some con men in a prison, and maybe a stronger ending, but it kept my interest and sure kept me turning the pages. I'd recommend this to anyone who has enjoyed Grisham's other books.
Rating: 
Summary: The most unappealing Grisham book ever
Review: When I was a young lad in high school English Lit, I seem to recall being taught that one of the elements of any novel was a protagonist-antagonist conflict. You know, Square-Jawed Good Guy vs. Despicable Bad Guy - that sort of thing. Grisham's THE BRETHREN is the first novel I can remember reading in a very long time, if ever, that has no protagonist. Maybe he's now trying to write about real life where there're more gray areas. Joe Roy Spicer, Hatlee Beech and FinnYarber are, respectively, a former Mississippi Justice of the Peace, a former Texas federal judge, and a former California Supreme Court Chief Justice. All three are in a minimum security Federal pen in Florida for various peccadilloes. And all three are using the US mail system to blackmail middle-aged homosexual men they've enticed out of the closet with a phony advert in a gay magazine. Helping them is their sleazy lawyer, Trevor Carson, who, for a cut of the take, acts as their link to the Postal Service. On a seemingly unrelated track, Teddy Maynard is the unscrupulous, crippled Director of the CIA who has decided that the US needs a stronger military. To achieve this, he proposes to a relatively unknown Arizona Congressman, Aaron Lake, that he, Lake, enter the recently begun presidential primaries on a Double-the-Defense Budget platform. Aaron, a shameless political opportunist, is malleable and accepts, the task made easier by the tens of millions of dollars that Teddy manipulates into his campaign coffers. One of the main reasons that Maynard has selected Lake is the latter's apparent freedom from human foibles. Aaron apparently has no skeletons in his closet. The reader knows all this thirty pages into the book, and unless he/she hasn't been paying attention, can predict where the plot is going. It's not that THE BRETHREN is uninteresting or slow paced. It's just that all involved - Spicer, Beech, Yarber, Carson, Maynard, and Lake - are all so ... unsavory. I didn't wish any of them well even to the slightest degree. Any fascination the plot engenders is simply from observing the two camps collide. So, despite what I learned in English Lit, not every novel has a protagonist. THE BRETHREN suffers markedly for this lack. Get back to the basics, John! This book was unpleasant.
Rating:
Summary: Good plot Fair ending
Review: It look like the most problems for Grisham's novel is the ending. I alway upset about the ending of his novels. It seem like he's too tire to think what the ending should be. It just suddenly end, you know. Like he think "oh I want it to end right now I've use so much time to write it Now I need a long vacation" But I've to accept that the plot of most of his novels are still the best. And that is the big reason why I like his book and ready to pay for every book that wrote by John Grisham.
Rating:
Summary: The Brethren
Review: I have read all of his books except his latest which I gonna read in some days. I don't compare the books. Every story has its own thrill and pace. If you read this book for a story then you will defintely find one or you might read this book for words - you find a good written book with nice words - but why don't you read it for fun ? Enjoy the story and the words and let the author play the game for you. That is the way I enjoy reading books. You can't judge a book by its cover. I know this aint a review - but a good approach to give yourself a chance to discover a good story. I personally went on a discovery tour - an explorer and at the end I found what I was looking for. Sometimes in life YOU look for something and you don't know what it is - before having found it, right ? Same with books !!! Enjoy the story - coz it has its own mystery in itself !
Rating:
Summary: The Grisham BBQ
Review: Reading The Brethren reminded me terribly of the old days of the charcoal barbecue experience. Great anticipation for the whole event. Then, once lit, the briquettes take forever to heat up to a nice grilling temperature. But as soon as you throw the steaks on, the heat dissipates and you're left with raw meat. This is exactly how I feel about The Brethren. I was intrigued by the tension and the potential danger created by the main characters weaving together. However, the slow start and the weak ending killed the whole book for me. Raw meat.
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