Rating: 
Summary: A Pleasant Surprise
Review: A friend from Pennsylvania loaned me this book @ Christmastime 2001 but I did not get around to reading it until January 2003 and then only because I had nothing else to read/ I do not like courtroom stories and since that is Mr. Grisham's forte I had little hope that I would enjoy it. However after the first two pages I was hooked. Maybe it was because I grew up in a small Southern town during the same era, albeit in far different circumstances, but I felt I knew these people and what's more at the end of the book I wanted to know much more about the characters-what was Luke's life like after he arrived in Flint, Michigan, what happened to his Uncle Ricky and also to his parents and grandparents? Did he ever see the young tennage girl or her murderer boyfriend, Cowboy, again? I think that is about the greatest compliment a reader can give to an author that he wants to read more about his subjects. It was also refreshing to see that despite his wealth(a plantation in Virginia, #1 bestsellers. etc) that Mr. Grisham has not completly forgotten his life in rural Northeastern Arkansas. Please, Mr. Grisham , may we have more? It would also be nice to see this made into a major motion picture, after all, the rest of his books have been.
Rating: 
Summary: John has had better
Review: This book isn't as good as some of his other ones. The beginning was slow but as you got further into the book it got better. I liked the characteristics given to the characters, it made the book better. Having the struggles in the book makes it more realistic!
Rating:
Summary: A pleasant trip into a quieter time
Review: As a period novel, A Painted House accurately and successfully transports the reader to a quieter, more immediate time--I felt the drudgery and dull desperation of cotton farming seep into my own emotions as I read. Rare moments of tension and suspense are properly dwarfed by more significant observations about people, particularly as shared by a young boy not yet jaded by an accumulation of adult experiences.Having read all of Grisham's other works, I found this book a happy diversion which lost none of its charm through lacking a legal backdrop for its story. The plot, as it exists, satisfies, and details produce a whole picture, though by no means a classic one.
Rating: 
Summary: What the heck was that
Review: The rules of these reviews prevent me from using profanity, so excuse the lame title. This book had no plot, no ending, and no reguard for the readers intellegence. The main charictor thinks and acts 10 years older than the book claims he is. Each chapter is about an average event that should have been reduced to a paragraph. Usually I enjoy a Grisham book, but I had to force myself to read this one waiting for something to happen. It seems that he tried to write a charictor developement book that would make you feel as if you knew each one of the charictors intimatly, however, in the end I really cared less about what happened to these people because they still felt like strangers. Grisham needs to stick with courtroom drama's and leave whatever type of writing you would call this alone.
Rating:
Summary: You'll hate to see it end...and you'll want a sequel.
Review: While this is a great change from his typical novels, it is a delightful change. The start was a bit slow, but before long, the characters grab you and you are set back in rural Arkansas with the Chandlers. The pace of the book was refreshing - takes you back to a different way of looking at life - and I didn't want the story to end...
Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly limp
Review: The previous owner of my house left a collection of books behind, mostly spiritual (in the worst sense of the word) and contemporary fiction. I am not much of a reader of popular fiction, and this book, my first experience with John Grisham, is a perfect example of why. I started with no preconceptions; I have not seen any films based on his work, nor read a word he has written. But I did know he is a multi-gajillion selling author who writes high-powered thrillers. This book is neither. It is a fictional memoir, and as such loses its power in both realms. Since it is fiction, the agaionies described lose some of their clout. There are many charming books about growing up in the rural South, tales such as My Dog Skip or The Year The Lights Came On, stories of daily life in a world as remote as ancient Persia. There are also many high-octane novels about the evil that lurks in the heart of men. But rarely have I read a book with so little of either charm or energy. This is metaphor-free, almost adjective-free, writing, a long recitation of he said, we did, I walked, she moved, Pappy drove, on and on and on. No suggestions, no implications, no connections of any kind are added to any of the prose. It is amazing to me that a famous writer could write so long and yet use so little poetic language. The few adjectives used are cliched and trite, the swirling water, the bouncing children, the dark sky. And you'll seek fruitlessly for an evocative simile or metaphor. The plot (such as it is) drives the story, and it is a fascinating look at a world recently here, but thankfully long gone. A world of bitterness, back-breaking labor, narrow-minded religiosity and limited visions is the world Grisham describes, a place he (and I) were eager to leave. But this feels like the book a person with no writing experience would compose, one of those novels someone who was "always told they should write a book about their childhood" would write. The lifeless prose drags along like the butter beans in the story. Sustaining, nutritious, even solid, but without much sparkle or flavor. Not bad, but not much good either.
Rating:
Summary: A Painted House
Review: I started reading a painted house this Christmas vacation. I guess it must have been hard to concentrate on this book amid all the excitment! But I did like the book, its kinda slow at first...after you get past that it gets more exciting! I liked how the book gave all the characters a very definable personality and it drew a very clear mental picture of each person!I wish the book had started out more exciting so that I could have been more excited to finish! But the book does have a plot and it does become more exciting as your read...haha just don't give up at the beginning!
Rating: 
Summary: A Painted House
Review: This book was very good and made you want to read it. The ending definately came too soon...
Rating:
Summary: Simple Perfection
Review: Although I am a Huge Crisham Fan and have read everything the man has yet to write, I have never finished a book, a Crisham or anyone else, and turned it over and started reading it from the beginning again ! This book was so vivid, so detailed and so engrossing that I found myself in the rural Arkansas Cotton fields working along side the migrant workers, I could smell the aroma flowing from a southern country kitchen and could feel my eyes sting with tears as a young boy got the ... side of a hickory stick. In the end it was a book I did not want to end and it left me pondering the possibilties of what happened to each and every charactor. A great read !! I just wish there were more like it !
Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: I have read John Grisham before but have never thought of his books as anything special however I have become a fan because of this book. This book reminded me of "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. If you are looking for suspense and courtroom drama - look elsewhere. This is a family story; it may not be for everyone but I thought it was a wonderful story.
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