The Chamber

Rating:
Summary: Grishams Deepest, and darkest book Yet.
Review: After reading The Rainmaker and The Client, I was suprised at this one. Its about a Klan-member who, along with two other guys, set a bomb in a lawyers office and killed two children. He is sentenced to death, and his grandson comes to help him. Along the way, he learns all about their famalies dark past. This one is much more serious than his other books. It really resembles the movie Dead Man Walking. Oh yes, it is depressing, with moments of lynchings, shootings, bombings, and suicide. But still, this is my favorite John Grisham novel.

Rating:
Summary: Death Row Psycho Drama
Review: The Chamber is another story written to appeal to readers who love realism, cold and unvarnished. Grisham is as always spell-binding. However, this story did not have the appeal that all of his others have had for me. It was simply too depressing. No doubt it is a message piece, but we get so much realism everyday and if you are looking for some "reading for pleasure" Grisham is disappointing in The Chamber.

Rating:
Summary: a rare Grisham foray into true literature
Review: First of all, I usually despise Grisham novels--they are at most entertaining pieces of pulp fiction. But The Chamber is a truly literary achievement. It explores the burden of the past, especially in the Southern context. You might even have some clue that Grisham is from the great state that produced Faulkner, Williams and Willie Morris.

Rating:
Summary: Grisham's weakest novel
Review: A very thin story line, not entertaining, no excitement, disappointing. Not the usual Grisham quality, which is suspenseful, entertaining and brings you into a different world.

Rating:
Summary: Only 100 pages left to go....
Review: Oh my God....it has taken me a month and a half to get through this book. I dread going to bed at night to read it in spite of my dogged determination to get through it. While I find most of Grisham's stuff to be shallow but at least entertaining, the Chamber, however, is dull dull dull. Having bamboo shoved under my fingernails is sound pretty good as an alternative to yet one more evening struggling through this book. Next time you're browsing the Grisham section leave this one on the shelf you wouldn't want to disturb the dust.

Rating:
Summary: Well Defined Characters - Very Weak Ending
Review: This book left me wanting, unsatisfied, and thinking of half a dozen better ways to have ended it. The characters are well defined, even likable, and the theme is thought prevoking. The story is built on a house of cards that collapses from a weak ending.

Rating:
Summary: The average Grisham novel.....slow start, but good middle
Review: The end was weak.....almost sad and depressing to see what happens to Sam.

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Summary: Grisham gets serious
Review: He's a wealthy author now and can afford to try to get serious, and get serious he does with this compelling, but sometimes tedious meditation on the death penalty and one man's grueling demise on death row.

Sam Cayhall, a vicious racist and Klan member, is defended from death by his grandson.

Will the reader feel sympathy for this evil man? Will the suffering endured on death row and the passionate intervention of his grandson make Sam regret his evil life?

I enjoyed this book but it is simply not a John Grisham book. He sets you up for a typical John Grisham denoument, but it simply never happens, and I felt kind of cheated at the end.

Still, a sobering and saddening look at the death penalty, and a fairly good read.

Rating:
Summary: One confusing book...but I liked it!
Review: I thought it was a really neat book because I mean, it was kind of different just because from everything else that I have ever read. But I thought it was kind of stupid how the author said that it was his grandson, and it in the summary it sounded to much more mysterious but then again, maybe that was just to attract readers and all. But I thought it was a pretty good book, and I thought there should have been some kind of like romance it the book to spice it up and the aunt was just in the way of everything and I don't think there should have been any reason as to put her in. And then in the end, I really liked it because it was like a cliffhanger so I mean...read it!

Rating:
Summary: Want to cure insomnia and regret buying a book? Read this.
Review: If you want to get thought provoking stuff on the consequences of the death penalty here is my suggestion: Go to a video store and rent the movie "Dead Man Walking". "The Chamber" is a boring, pointless slog that goes on and on and on and on and on until you pitch the wretched thing into the fireplace. Grisham is always switching sides on how we should view Sam Cayhall and never stays on one long enough to make a point. Stay as far away from this book as possible!! You have been warned.