Rating: 
Summary: Awesome read!
Review: I absolutely LOVED this book! All fans of James Patterson will enjoy this historically twisted novel. I love history as well, and it really brought to life the Crusade and the Middle Ages. History buffs & Patterson fans alike will enjoy this winner!
Rating:
Summary: Something other than Alex Cross? THANK YOU!!!
Review: I shant bother to tell you what the book is about......other reviewers have done that. I just finished this book five minutes ago, and the last hour has had me 100% enthralled. I hated to finish this book-- I love Medieval stuff and this is one of the best books I've read of that genre.So many folks criticize authors when they stray from their "niche". I truly love ALL of the Alex Cross novels, but I think Mr. Patterson is an incredibly talented writer no matter WHAT he does. Cross novels are more of a "quick" read, but his others have more substance, in my opinion. Put yourself in his place, in a matter of speaking. Let's say you like to cook. You're FABULOUS at Italian food. You want to spread your wings and try a little stir-fry. Yes, it's different than what you usually cook, but a good chef is a good chef. I've loved all of his non-Cross books....."Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" had me crying, and "When the Wind Blows" was my first Patterson read, and still my favorite. This man has an incredible imagination. I bought "Miracle on the 17th Green" for my husband, an avid golfer. I do NOT share his love for golf, but truly appreciated the book and my husband's passion a bit more for reading it. This is one of the few Patterson books I would want to own. It's a wonderful story. Give it a chance; perhaps you too will get as caught up in Hugh's adventure as I did. I'm not sure what Mr. Gross did as co-author, but they make a grand team. HERE YE! HERE YE! James Patterson still reigns as my favorite author!
Rating:
Summary: WOW GREAT BOOK
Review: Initially, I didn't know if I could read this book, because of some of the violent acts toward children (I'm extremely soft-hearted). Although, some of these acts needed to be there to make this book such a great story. Every time I thought the book could have ended, another great aspect of the story arose. I read nearly the entire book in two days! I was completely absorbed! I couldn't put it down. Five of my friends read it and also felt it was excellent! Very different and VERY good! I too have yet to read a book from this Author that I did not enjoy. I'm with Reviewer Danna of New Castle/ DE, I'm a true Patterson fan and was not disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Contempoorary lit
Review: not a typo...just another example of what passes for readable literature these days. Any fan of historical novels will be seriously disappointed. Any fan of good writing will wonder what the fuss is about. Fair for a beach read and better than watching a reality show on t.v. but don't expect much from this one.
Rating:
Summary: WAS THE HERO A FOOL OR THE FOOL A HERO?
Review: In The Jester, James Patterson is taking a totally new direction from his best selling previous novels, which were mostly intriguing suspense novels. My favorite novel by James Patterson is Kiss the Girls a gripping page turner about a pair of psychopathic serial murderers, one on the east coast and one on the west coast who were friends and compared notes. Kiss the Girls was also made into a movie and with the benefit of having my favorite actor(Morgan Freeman) and my favorite actress(Ashley Judd), playing leading roles, was my favorite movie of that year. Well in real life there's only so many serial killers around(one or two a year I guess) and since the market had been saturated by Patterson along with Thomas Harris, John Sanford and numerous other serial killer writers, it was time to look in a new direction. Patterson and Gross not only changed they're direction they went back in time to the late eleventh century and the age of the 1st Crusade. I am, somewhat, a student of history and having read a couple books on the vague but terribly interesting history of the Crusades, I believe the setting for this story seems well researched and very accurate. Now, in addition to being accurate about the setting I'm afraid it is also accurate about brutality and inhumanity of the age as well. If your looking for Damsels in distress and Knights in shinning armor willing to give their life for their beneficent liege lord, go buy King Arthur instead. In this book you're more likely to be killed at the hands of your maleficent liege lord. In fact, as Kiss the Girls had two predators. The Jester also has two main bad guys(two Dukes) and a cast of hundreds of other cruel murderous supporters. These local bad boys used to randomly rape, murder and burn villages in the name of the Duke. And of course that makes you feel good as our hero manages to infiltrate and turn the tables on these evil characters. But it's not that easy, and our hero goes through hell on earth, first venturing off to the Crusades for two years, where he barely escapes death numerous times, while seeing friends get massacred. Then going home only to find out his Inn (Hugh was an Innkeeper)had been burned down and his infant son, which he didn't know he had, had been thrown in the flames and his wife Sophie taken away by the marauders, to who knows where. The consensus among the villagers was that she was dead, however Hugh felt she wasn't and so he starts out on an odyssey of rescue and revenge. Along the way, Hugh manages to get gored by a boar, saved from slow death by the beautiful noble lady in waiting, Emilee, subsequently tutored in the ways of Jestering by her friend, Norbert, so he could infiltrate his perceived enemies court and thats where I need to stop and you need to read the book. I will say this though. There is something Hugh has that he picked up in the Crusades that others want. That is behind all his troubles when he returns. You could ultimately draw parallels between this story and Spartacus but the ending is happier. How does this book compare with Patterson's other books?, Well, I think kiss the Girls was better and Along Came a Spider but I liked it better than the other five or six I read, one or two of which were downright silly. One problem I had with the book was, that while certain events were suspenseful the ultimate end was transparent to me. Because of that this book is slightly below *****, rounded back up.
Rating:
Summary: The Jester by Pattersen
Review: Reads like a Class B Movie, and has no redeeming value.
Much unecessary sick violence and I'm sorry I wasted the money on it. Never buy a book by two authors because they obviously get in each others way as looks like what happened in this book.
Too melodramatic. The whole section on the Crusade could have been shortened to one small chapter. Too many silly improbables.
My advice: Don't buy it. I'll never buy another book by this author. I will also always be susicious of the great positive
reviews........don't you ever report a "negative" review like this ?
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Awful!!
Review: This is the first book by James Patterson that I've read. I like historical fiction but this book was so poorly written it was almost unbearable to read. It was especially disappointing because it was recommended by Book of the Month Club which is generally reliable. Don't waste your time with this book!!
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't believe how bad it was
Review: Reviews here for The Jester have been either "loved it!" or "hated it!" Sad to say, I'm in the second camp. I have read a number of Patterson's Alex Cross books and always enjoyed them; at least they were decently written. Not so this dreck! I don't know who Andrew Gross is or what his relationship to Patterson may be, but he is definitely getting the better part of the deal. The Jester barely qualifies for the beach. Although it's presented as a historical novel, don't expect much. The main character is gone and back from the Holy Land by page 75. The writing waffles between stilted dialogue and anachronistic neologisms. Maybe twenty medieval references are sprinkled in (but inadequately explained), along with such Old French slang as "Whadaya mean?" and "c'mon." I mean, c'mon! The book seems like juvenile fiction, except for the rather sizeable amount of profanity, sex, and gratuitous violence. I kept expecting an N.C. Wyeth illustration on the next page. Robin Hood with an R rating. Funny how something like Harry Potter is considered children's literature and we grownups get garbage like this.
Rating:
Summary: The Jester fails to deliver a punch line
Review: I had never read a James Patterson book before, but I picked up The Jester based on some pretty good reviews. And at the beginning of the novel, I wasn't disappointed. I was taken in by the evident exhaustive research that brought the time period alive. I felt for the characters' frustrations. And the tale of the Crusades was vivid and believable. And then things fell apart for me. As soon as Hugh returns to his village, the whole story started sounding like a Movie of the Week, rather than a story of historical intrigue. Too many convenient coincidences, too much of a 21st Century mentality thrust upon a 12th Century setting. By the end of the novel, I was rolling my eyes in disbelief, thinking, "This would have NEVER happened!" It seemed that the second half of the book was nothing but a lot of hackneyed plot twists and half-baked "surprises" that I could predict from a mile away. I finished the book, only just. I actually skipped quite a bit because I couldn't stand to read it. When I finished, my husband asked me how it was (he was waiting to read it next), and I told him what I'm telling you: Don't bother.
Rating:
Summary: Apparently they needed to do more research!
Review: Can anybody tell me how does Turks got into this book in the year 1096? It is a shame that after citing all these history books they will sit and write a book without a factual check. For those who have no idea what I am talking about: Turks got into Asia Minor (Anatolia) in the year 1071 and they were no where near the first Crusaders. They might have been in the Muslim armies fighting against the Crusaders but calling the Muslims "Turks" is a grave error for these authors who claim to write according to historical facts. I am great fan of historical novels but this book definitely doesn't fall into that category.
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