The Chamber

Rating:
Summary: Total Boring waste of time
Review: The chamber is by far Grisham's worst piece of work. The story was flat, dull and boring, a total waste of time. In the beginning, it seemed to have a good premise, however, Mr. Grisham wrote this book to death (no pun intended!). After about 90 pages, I flipped to the end to see what the verdict was guilty as charged, as I suspected. Ah there I gave away the ending with absoltely no loss to humanity! However, The chamber should not take away from Grisham's other fine literary works. A Time to Kill, the Client, the Firm and the Pelican Brief.

Rating:
Summary: A dark, dense big book!
Review: This is the first Grisham book I have read, and I liked his style of writing. It is an easy, fluid style and it also shows he feels comfortable tackling controversial issues such as Capital Punishment. I also liked the fact he isn't the kind of writer who believes in the "prevailing of good" like the rest of the authors out there do. Grisham is a writer of fiction, but it is fiction which is all too credible- and thus, much more frightening....

Rating:
Summary: Flat, flat, flat
Review: This was the first (and probably the last) of Grisham's volumes I have read. While Grisham may be popular, it is obviously not based on the actual quality of his writing, but rather on the curiousity of the public about his subjects. The characters all sound the same and a real sense of depth is never developed in any of them. The introduction of Carmen, for instance, leaves a lot to be desired and I was left wondering why she was even introduced. To show the trial to the family? If so, that was a failure. If Grisham really wanted to show the moral dilemmas in the death penalty he would have been much better off not to paint those opposed to it as heroes while those in favor of it (i.e. Nugent) as complete morons. Where is the dilemma in this? Where is the expectation that the reader be left in anyway disturbed? If one is already opposed to the death penalty there is no real tension here. If one is in favor of it then the overblown portrayal of Nugent will be quite simply sickening and again the reader is put off from the real questions. I expect literature to disturb and raise questions and leave me in a state where I don't know what to think, but where I am left thinking. I can't ask that of The Chamber.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't finish it!
Review: Maybe it was because the Woodward verdict came through whilst I was reading this; that put me of legal eagles for sure, but to be honest I was struggling before that. I devoured the Client and A Time to Kill, but just couldn't get into this one. Sorry John I know you need the money!! NOT!

Rating:
Summary: NO!!!
Review: This book is by far the most BORING book I ever read. The only reason I kept reading it till the end was I thought something interesting might still happen. Needles to say it didn't ,the end was quite like the rest of the book dull and unintersting. :-(

Rating:
Summary: Slow Going
Review: The Firm was a "10." Not so, The Chamber. At least 200 pages too long. One redeeming feature was a glimpse into the machinations of death-row litigation.

Rating:
Summary: No Grisham book took longer to read!
Review: I have read all Grisham books, seen (afterwards) all Grisham movies, but none is as dissapointing as this book. All through reading the book I was waiting for the suspense to start. I thought many times: when does the story start. And when the pages left to read became fewer and fewer, I got this strange feeling: Is there a story in this book? After finishing it I had a very unsatisfied feeling and wanted to read The Chamber II, the sequel... Maybe the story is in there.....

Rating:
Summary: Intoxicating and exciting.
Review: This wasn't Grisham's best book, but certainly not his worst. It tells of a young attorney who digs up an old case of a Ku Klux Klan bombing. One of the bombers, Sam Cayhall, is a man behind a exceptional story and great read.

Rating:
Summary: I've read better from John!!
Review: NOT one of Mr. Grisham's better effects, truly one of his cerebral projects.

Rating:
Summary: Super!
Review: I think you can read it very well