Bleachers

Rating:
Summary: Bleachers
Review: John Grisham is best known for writing legal thrillers, but "Bleachers" is far from being a legal thriller. Neely Crenshaw returns to his home town of Messina because his high school football coach, the legendary Eddie Rake, is on his death bed. While there he meets up with many people who played for Eddie Rake. Rake coached at Messina from 1958-1992 and won over 400 games and many state championships, but he was very tough on his players especially on Neely Crenshaw who was an All-American high school quarterback who played on Rake's last championship team in 1987. This novel is about football obviously, but it is also about remembering and forgiving. If you are from a small town in the South as I am, you'll understand that on Friday nights in the fall football is the only game in town. "Bleachers" is a very good novel, and every football fan should read it.

Rating:
Summary: DIFFERENT
Review: A GOOD BOOK BUT NOT HIS USUAL UP ALL NIGHT PAGE TURNER'S. A TRUE LOOK AT THE DECISIONS WE MAKE CAN AND DO FOLLOW US FOR A LONG TIME. IT IS WORTH THE TIME IT TAKES TO READ IT.

Rating:
Summary: Small Town Football
Review: If you come from a football-worshipping, nothing else to do on a fall Friday night small town as I did in Ohio you will relate to this book. Since I am the same age as Neely it was like going back in time as he went back to his hometown. The description of the fans especially the rowdy ones near the end zone, how many fans showed up and the pristine playing field was like a walk in my own memory. Being a girl in such a town all you wanted to be was the quaterback's girlfriend. I still have the animosity that Neely felt towards his high school life and rarely visit there. Our football coach was considered a god and so many things were ignored until there was hard proof of his philandering with young high school girls and there was not a way out of firing him. I could have written this story from a completely different perspective.

Rating:
Summary: AK Reader
Review: Very disappointing. A book about some middle-aged men reliving their high school football days. Shallow book with not much meat.

Rating:
Summary: Length isn't everything!
Review: Longtime Coach Eddie Rake of the Messina High School Spartan football team is dying, and his former players are coming home to the bleachers to roost like buzzards. Some of the former players made good and some not so good. This is not vintage Courtroom Drama Grisham but there are a couple of lawyers (including the Judge delivering a eulogy,) a few criminals (including one in an Angola-like Penitentiary,) and an Old School Southern Sheriff.

It's a sometimes Faulknerian, nostalgic look at the Religion of Southern Football that you can read during commercials on NCAA College Game Days. Reviewed by TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: This is SO true
Review: I live in a small southern town and this book is so true. Football is like a religion, I'm not a football fan. If they ever make a movie out of this book they should cast the Dallas Cowboy's head coach (Parcells) to play the coach in the movie he would be great.

Rating:
Summary: Not your vintage Grisham
Review: If you are a Grisham fan you may be disappointed. This is his worst book to date. I don't mind the fact that he has strayed from his legal "roots" but both skipping christmas and A painted house were much better reads.

Rating:
Summary: Nostalgia and more nostalgia
Review: Although I am not a fan of football, I am a Grisham fan, so I decided to give "Bleachers" a try. It was entertaining, but a bit too one-dimensional. The plot covers several days in time during which high school football coach and legend Eddie Rake is on his death bed, and many of his past players and most of the town of Messina rally to pay their last respects. Except for a scene between all-American star and town hero Neely Crenshaw and a former girlfriend, all the dialog and action centers on football and memories of Coach Rake. The reader receives a play-by-play account of several of the more notable games in the coach's tenure, experiences all the triumphs and defeats of several generations of Spartans, and sweats along with the players during their grueling training sessions. But beyond the aura of Coach Rake and the controversy concerning his training methods, there is little else of substance there.

Grisham performs admirably in evoking the atmosphere of the small football-oriented town and the team spirit of the students who played football there. The reader can hear the cheers in the bleachers, see the action on the playing field, and feel the loyalty, nostalgia, and camaraderie of the football alumni as they gather on the field to honor their Coach and relive their football past. Although he never makes an appearance in the story, Coach Rake is the most strongly portrayed character in the book. He is loved and hated, respected and feared. But although he is larger than life, he is the most human character. The reader learns of his emotions and frailties. Protagonist Neely, on the other hand, is poorly depicted beyond his obsession with, and ultimate acceptance of, his past.

For those football players and fans among you, "Bleachers" will probably bring back many memories. But when you close the cover of the book, it is those memories, rather than the story itself, that will remain with you.

Rating:
Summary: A Lengthy Obituary
Review: How on earth did I pick this book up and not associate the title with football? Obviously, I have not been faithful in my football as religion classes. Truly this was dreary bleck, and I put down the book after a couple chapters. And along comes a dear friend (who usually knows my reading tastes) and hands me the recorded version saying that it "gets better" and that I would enjoy it. Well, it didn't and I didn't. Basically this story is an obituary for a dying high school football coach, as well as a treatise on the insanity that goes along with this game. If you love to rehash every minute detail of football games from the distant past and if football is a religious experience for you, ... well, this will be a wonderful read!

Letting the author read this book was also a mistake - Grisham's reading would be just lovely for a short story, but 4 CDs of his rather flat, accented monotone didn't spice up anything, and his switching from character to character was disingenuous: Silo: "Blah, Blah, Blah." Neely: "Blah, Blah, Blah."

I have considered myself a long time Grisham fan (including Painted House and especially Skipping Christmas). Bleachers, however, was a complete and total waste of my time and energy.

Rating:
Summary: Not what you expect.
Review: I have read every novel written by this Author. I could easily believe that someone else wrote this boring book and he put his name on it for the money. What the heck was he thinking when he wrote this disappointing drivel without a plot. If you're a die-hard Grisham fan, your expectations will die-easily while reading this book. He should stick with the formula he knows, the law.

I made the mistake of paying full price for this book.
Check out the reviews of these books; The Da Vinci Code, Mind Catcher, Alien Rapture, and Timeline. I greatly enjoyed these books, unlike Bleachers (Bleakers).