Rating:  Summary: Terrific Job Mr. Turrow! Review: Personal Injuries captures the torment of being an undercover agent/handler as well as the torment of living the life of an informant. In this novel, Mr. Turrow manages to describe how it must feel to not only end a life defined by power and luxury, but to end the lives of all those around you who have entered into the same unlawful yet seductive method of doing business. A method which is readily rationalized as "the way things are done". However, most poignant is Mr. Turrow's straight-forward portrayal of life with ALS. He neither sugar coats this hideous, unfair desease nor does he employ any tear jerking quips; he simply places the reader in a position to learn a little about coping with the illness as well as coping as a family member. His endnotes are equally moving as he thanks those brave individuals who are living with ALS and continue to find meaning, humor and compassion for the rest of us who have for whatever reason avoided this desease.
Rating:  Summary: Turow's Worst Review: I am an avid reader of any type of book. Scott Turow's new book, Personal Injuries, in my opinion, is the worst book he has written. There are too many characters, it is too hard to follow, it is hard to understand who is speaking in the book. I got through three chapters of this book and had to put it down. I found it grueling to get through, which really surprised me. I have read other Turow books and found them very interesting. Maybe it is just me, but i found it terrible.
Rating:  Summary: Even the author wasn't interested in this one Review: I have read and enjoyed Turow's other books, but I gave up on this one half way through. The narrative is confusing, the characters are unidimensional, and the plot is boring!
Rating:  Summary: Where are you, Scott Turow? Review: I have read all of Turow's novels and was anxiously awaiting this one. I fell asleep after just twenty pages! In the middle of the day! Scott, you're supposed to "grab your audience," remember? First basic rule of novel writing.Get exciting like when you wrote "Presumed Innocent" or "Burden of Proof" -- books we couldn't put down.
Rating:  Summary: Dark, Complex and Sadly, Very Realistic Review: This is not a quick paced, flashy courtroom thriller. Rather, Turow spends a great deal of time developing a number of charactors of tremendous complexity. It is these charactors, their development, strengths, weaknesses and discoveries about themselves and each other which drives the book. There are no laughs in this book, period...but a very realistic portrayal of the dark side of human nature, disease, and the different forms ambition can take. Every person in this story wears at least one mask, and part of the attraction of the story line, which is challenging to follow at times, is the slow unmasking which takes place. I found the ending completely satisfying and feel this is one of Turow's best books.
Rating:  Summary: emotional, fast read Review: From a slow start dealing with starting and executing an FBI undercover operation, Turow visits a woman dealing with unacknowledged lesbian feelings, another woman coping with ALS and an assortment of double dealing lawyers and judges to come to a can't-put-the-book-down, emotional, climax. Not my favorite by Turow, but very readable nonetheless with not too much leagalese.
Rating:  Summary: Disappointed Review: I found this to be a huge disappointment, as I had read other Scott Turow novels, and I looked forward to this one. In my opinion, the plot line wandered and was boring. Definitely not up to his usual fast-moving tales.
Rating:  Summary: In Search of More Poetic Prose in a Thriller. Review: I am an author and I love thrillers. My biggest disappointment in today's world of adventure fiction is the inability to find a mesmerizing adventure constructed with poetic and living prose which allows me to feel the southern Louisiana heat, smell the toasted bagels in a Manhattan deli or wince along with the facial expressions of a lawyer caught ambulance chasing in the hospital room of a critically injured patient. While a better yarner than Turow, Grisham's works lack the sort of living color which fiction demands. I recently discovered an author who accomplishes this and a thriller in which he does it. The author is Gary Wickert, and the book is DARK REDEMPTION. If you like Grisham's storylines, but want to be riveted to and made love to by the prose which are the building blocks of any piece of fiction....READ 'DARK REDEMPTION'.
Rating:  Summary: A Thinking Person's Book Review: Hey, folks, if you are looking for a simple read with a formula plot, two-dimensional characters, and a writing style that can be cut-and-pasted into a first grade primer, don't waste your money on Personal Injuries. However, if you are tired of the typical best-seller pap that is probably costing you a quarter of a hundred dollars for a hard-bound novel, make a good investment and buy this book. This is a novel to be savored word-by-word, like a good Chardonnay. Turow's characters are, despite their human frailties, real honest-to-gosh human beings. As you read, you can feel the life forces of these people's blood pulsating through their bodies. Robbie Feaver is the Willie Loman of the Millennium. Just about everything about him is false. His whole life has been so full of lies, he has convinced even himself that they are true. Despite Robbie's weaknesses, however, we get a chance, thanks to Mr. Turow, to step inside Feaver's body and see the soul of the man. Another character, Evon (DeDe), who is tied up in knots in her own identity crisis, is easy to dislike. But we learn why we dislike her and it is through this understanding of her character that we see a human being under the layers of camouflage. Personal Injuries is not an easy book to read. It is advisable not to read certain sections of it at bedtime, or (as I did) you will awaken in the middle of the night with the bed light still on and the book still opened to the page at which you fell asleep. To those who found it boring, I give this bit of advice: read it again-this time as an intelligent piece of literature rather than a mindless bedtime story. Look for the richness of the plot, the texture of the characters, the craftsmanship of the way Turow puts his words on paper. This is the first time I have read any of Scott Turow's books. If, according to some readers, this latest book is an indication of his "downhill spiral," then gangway, everyone-I'm headin' out to buy everything he's written!
Rating:  Summary: A Good Effort, But Not His Best Review: Like many other readers, I found PERSONAL INJURIES slow going. What kept me interested was the character of Robbie Feaver. He is such a train wreck! The feds were sorry they latched onto him as an informant. And Turow feints and maneuvers and leads us readers down blind alleys--I guarantee you won't know what happens to Robbie until the novel's very end. As a Midwesterner, I enjoyed seeing the "Kindle County" locales fleshed out; Turow's fictional setting is a kind of amalgam of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee. Not Turow's best book, but not bad.
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