Rating: 
Summary: A much better book than city people seem to recognise
Review: Having been the age of Grisham's protagonist on a crop-growing farm in Australia some 50 years ago, I recognise A Painted House's excellent picture of life in that period among marginal crop farmers relying on migrant workers. It's a remarkable piece of work, and with minor changes could be about crop farmers almost anywhere -- as they were then. I assume that the hand-run farm on which Grisham based his book would have been amalgamated into a much larger property probably owned by some corporation and watered and farmed with incredibly expensive machinery that only a corporation could afford; and that few members of the families he names would still live in the old rural neighbourhood with the rest having moved to the cities ... but Grisham got the whole thing right down pat. A shame that folks who expect only legal thrillers from him find that hard to understand, and value. The story has the accustomed easy Grisham narrative flow. People wanting to consider the universality of this book would be able to track down the Australian rural poem "Said Hanrahan" through a Google search. Poem and novel run alongside on the issue of farmers, talking about that everlasting preoccupation, weather.
Rating:
Summary: Grisham needed a breather
Review: I've read all of Grisham's books, some of them two or three times, and this book was needed. It is his first book without a lawyer present on any of the 388 pages. Although I am a fan of the law books, the last couple were getting tired and he needed a break. I'll spare you the details of what the book is about, since I'm sure you know, and give you my opinion. I thought it was a good read. Not a lot of action, or suspense, but a good story of about a boy growing up in rural Arkansas on a cotton farm. I was looking for a little more closer in the ending though. There were a few loose ends that I would have liked to see tied up. Such as how the Latchers and Chandlers situation resolved, and whether or not Ricky came back. Over all it was good though. I gave it 4 stars. Defiantly worthy of reading.
Rating:
Summary: Charming Story of a Rural Past
Review: I was born in an unpainted house beside the Tradewater River in Western Kentucky, a day's drive from John Grisham's fictional Black Oak, Arkansas. There was no cotton to pick. It was corn and hog country. My father was a tenant farmer not unlike Luke Chandler's grandfather, Pappy. I escaped the farm at three when my father got a job making plows at a factory in Indiana. Three years later he lost it when the stock market crashed. We came back home. This time to a little village along a railroad track. Like Grisham's hill people my father made a living killing hogs, peddling meat, cutting wood and doing odd jobs for better off farmers. The book's seven year old narrator aroused memories very much like his. I too hated gardening, loved picking coal along the tracks, rooted for the Cardinals, and dreamed of the city. At seven, unlike Luke, I do not remember panting to observe the nakedness of a comely teenage girl or witnessing even one murder. Yet, with the license of fiction, if Luke seems more like a boy of nine, this is still a charming story of a past which lives only in America's collective memory.
Rating:
Summary: "mighty" fine story
Review: When starting to read this book I had no clue what it was supposed to be about. The inside flaps and the back cover keeps everything vague, just admitting that it is about a '50s farmboy, his family, their farm hands, and the crop. This sounds a little like a nice little family story maybe even similiar to Tom Sawyer - and actually it is. A story of a moving quality of experiences and consequences, with other words a fine read. I don't want to talk about the book's story, because I think it is good not to know what a book really is about until you learn it from the book itself. You also could say the one of the best things about the book is that the publisher does not betray the reader and give him an idea of what the story is about - you might argue how you should chose a book if you don't have a clue what it is about. Well, as for this book, the story on the flaps and the book cover is indeed sufficient. To cut right to the chase, the book is good, because the story is fine. It is a story maybe a little inspried by works of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens although the literary quality definitely is not comparable with that of these authors. What I want to say is, the book is fine for a John Grisham. I have all of his books so far, and liked most of them, but entirely for their story and not for the writing, which is something I can't combine with a true writer - which Grisham positively is not. He is after all a lawyer who started writing and that's why all of his books where at least in some way about a lawyer except this one. This is not a bad thing - under circumstances -, but it is, if it is all you get for about eleven years or so. Lots of his books are boring or have at least too much lawyer 'n' courtroom stuff which makes it boring. This book obviously is different. There are no lawyers, no courtroom, nothing Grisham can identify with if he would not have grown up on a farm himself. I don't know if Grisham himself decided that his lawyers suck or if he just figured out that a change of scenery could pay more bills. Let's be honest: although this book is nice and pretty, really moving and so on, it is somehow artificial, appears to be at least, because Grisham desperately tried to change his reputation and to make something that could get his writing some fresh air. As I said, this book is good, and really treasureable, because it might be the best one Grisham has ever written, and, as I said, it's a fine story. Despite the fact that Grisham is doomed to write like a lawyer who started writing - with little literary beauty and grace, with bare words - this book is good, because for the first time in his career - it seems to me - he at least tried to give his writing more beauty and grace, making his characters deeper and more identifyable (although the seven year old narrator is kind of a satire to every seven year old kid - the kid's an ex-lawyer who started writing and is more than forty years old - and strongly reminds me of Calvin in the Calvin&Hobbes comics by Bill Watterson) - which he accomplished at times. I especially liked the ending about the book, because it was pathetic and somehow dramatic, the slight reflection of the quality works by Stephen King and John Irving have. In my opinion, if you are not one of those complete courtroom freaks - I honestly can't understand these folks, why would anybody like The Rainmaker or A Time To Kill except a lawyer, but these are supposed to be books and not trial protocolls, e.g. - this is a book everybody should read who likes OR does NOT like J. Grisham, because all of you might be in for some surprises. I liked the book very much, even if it was partially shallow and artificial, but I liked the narrator's tone, even if the idea that it is supposed to be the voice of a 7-year-old is ridiculous. Sometimes you just got to shut up that old critic that lives in the very all of us and just enjoy a story that is of good craftmanship and good heart. It will give your live a new perspective, for some time at least, as long as the story's still fresh in your mind, and - if nothing else - at least entertain you. What's more important than to retrieve a little entertainment out of the gray routines most of us call their lives?
Rating: 
Summary: A Summer Refresher
Review: As a long-time fan of John Grisham, I thoroughly enjoyed this departure from the courtroom norm. As the omniscient narrator, 8-year old Luke Chandler has all the humor and feelings we would expect from a child growing up in the 50's, in Arkansas. The story is a good read with fluid movement from beginning to end. Find your hammock and a glass of lemonade for best results........
Rating: 
Summary: No lawyers in this, thank God
Review: Well Grisham had tried something new and it sells because of his name. There is a murder and "mystery" on a rough and tumble setting. I prefer a mystery that makes me think a bit after I finish the book. This does not. A much more provocative read is Defenders of the Holy Grail by Ken Agori.
Rating:
Summary: Mind Capturing!
Review: This was my first read John Grisham novel, and I finished it in 2 days! It was very good. And I felt myself becoming a friend and confidante to Luke. Very, very good book, and I will defintely read another of his novels.
Rating: 
Summary: A little slow, but that's OK with me...
Review: Obiviously this slow southern story about cotton farming told through the eyes of a 7 year old boy was a huge departure from the legal thrillers we have come to expect from John Grisham. As a first attempt at a new genre, I give it a thumbs up. Reading it certainly put one back into a slower simpler place and time. The descriptiveness of the scenery and day to day life in a small town farming community in the early 1950's seemed quite realistic to me. At times it was tedious to read, particulary the minute details of the 1952 baseball season, but on the whole it was rather pleasureable. Good work Mr. Grisham.
Rating:
Summary: GRISHAM'S BEST
Review: I am a mystery fan and thought I might be disappointed by this new and unique offering by Grisham but I found this by far his best book and one of the best I have ever read. It is a simple novel about a subteen growing up in an earlier time on a southern cotton farm. No mystery, but unbelievably great reading. I could not put it down. Everyone in my family felt the same.
Rating:
Summary: Different
Review: A good book with a differance from the normal john grisham novels. The book takes u back to so many years in the life of the author and the struggles and hopes of a family,. A great book, but nothing to do with law firms
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