Personal Injuries

Rating:
Summary: intricate characters but slow moving and uneventful
Review: The characters are well developed, but the story moves slow and does not have the necessary suspense to make this a great read.

Rating:
Summary: Did Scott hire a 2nd rate ghost writer?
Review: This book falls well below the caliber of writing we have come to know from this author. I simply couldn't identify with any of the characters because they have no depth or personality. Words on a page do not add up to a great story.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful novel
Review: Just finished this. Excellent. Not only worth reading, worth digging his others out and re-reading them to experience great writing. It's been too long since his last one. I cannot wait for the next. By the way, Turrow's talents are far *above* Grisham's.

Rating:
Summary: DEAD ON ARRIVAL
Review: I don't know what book the other reviewers read but to say that the book was fast paced and had an exciting plot surely wasn't the book I read. It was booooring! I got the book from the library for two weeks and had to turn it in when the book was due and hadn't read half of it. There was no suspense, boring characters, no surprises. I read a lot of books but thriller is certainly not a label I would put on this one.

Rating:
Summary: The audiobook is worth your time
Review: I listened to the audiobook version (abridged) of Personal Injuries while driving to another state. The abridged version is about 6 hours (4 tapes). I do not know how this might differ from the actual text, but I enjoyed Joe Mantegna's reading (I believe he was the reader in the abridged version). This is the first audiobook I've read and my only criticism is that the complexities of the plot were such that I had to rewind it a few times to make sure I caught everything. I loved reading PRESUMED INNOCENT, ONE-L, and Turow's book after PI. I so enjoyed PI that I to this day refuse to see the movie because I do not want the movie to spoil my opinion of the book. That said, I thought the plot of PERSONAL INJURIES is interesting. It is intricate and not particular action-oriented. So it the taped version may not appeal to those who prefer action-oriented mysteries. In addition, INJURIES isn't necessarily a "mystery" in that you pretty much know who the "bad guys" are from the start (despite some turns the plot takes). I would consider it legal fiction. PRESUMED INNOCENT was a mystery novel and because the reader really wasn't sure what was going on until the end, it was incredibly suspenseful. If you are expecting another PRESUMED INNOCENT, you will probably not enjoy PERSONAL INJURIES. INJURIES is a good story in and of itself and I believe the audiobooks version does a good job with it. I have minor quibbles with the reading of the story--Mantegna tries hard to emulate a woman's voice with Evon Miller, an older Black man for one of the judges and a much older Jewish man for another one of the judges, but in these three cases his accents are a little off and almost sterotypical. Other than that, I enjoyed the taped story.

Rating:
Summary: another winner from the best legal writer out there
Review: beyond fabulous -great characters - Turow at his best - p. 375 should be reread once a year

Rating:
Summary: Greatest non-prescription cure for insomnia yet
Review: The plot of this new Turow novel moves so slowly that the hare-tortoise race would have a new loser today. Just ten pages a night and I am fast asleep. As a personal injury attorney, I should find the novel fascinating, but to my great disappointment, that is not the case.

Rating:
Summary: It took a tremendous effort to finish the book........
Review: Having not read any of Turow's other books I had heard he was compared to other attorney-turned-authors. He is not anywhere close to any of them - he has way too many characters - way too much meaningless dialog and just boring. Will not buy any other book written by him - unless I really am having trouble going to sleep.

Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: I checked this page, and wondered why a best-selling book had so few reviews. But then I got the book, and saw why: it takes a while to get into the book, so few readers had finished to be able to review it right away. Having said that, once I got into it, I liked. It's not a stream-lined thriller like Craig Furnas' THE SHAPE, or Michael Crichton's AIRFRAME, both books I loved, but more slowly-paced, and literary, and satisfying in THAT way.

Rating:
Summary: Worth Your Time
Review: No it isn't Grisham, but then his books are getting more Danielle Steelish every time. It's well written, well plotted, realistic characters (I liked the homely female judge-I know several just like her), thoughtful, and didn't throw me out of the story thinking "that could never happen in a real case" (I am a lawyer)