Rating: 
Summary: BRAVO !
Review: The Testament is an action packed book complete with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is defenitely a book for all personalities and backgrounds because it gives us a glimpse of what life is all about. Just like many of John Grisham's novels, once you pick it up you won't be able to set it down.
Rating: 
Summary: A welcome change from the technical
Review: I loved this book. I agree that the beginning was really slow and dragged on; that's why I gave it four stars instead of five. I thought it was wonderful and enjoyed the fact that Grisham stepped away from his typical style. Usually his books are so fast-paced and technical, you're almost tired when you're done. This was easy to read and just a lovely story. Loved the Christianity and didn't find it preachy, the idea of Nate's redemption and new life was terrific. We all have a second chance.
Rating: 
Summary: Trite and preachy
Review: This book, like Grisham's The Street Lawyer, is more about preaching a cause he has taken up at the time he wrote the book rather than telling a compelling story. Grisham's last really good book, and one I couldn't put down, was The Pelican Brief. The characters in The Testament are poorly drawn. The children of the rich guy are two-dimensional and cartoon-like. The plot is not engaging. I am struggling to get through it. I am put off by the Christian prosletyzing--very much out of place in a thriller-type book. I felt the same way about The Street Lawyer. It is simply not realistic. It almost seems like this book would be better found in a Christian bookstore, aimed at readers who buy into the Christian Fundamentalist limited and close-minded point of view and only read books that reaffirm that. I will unlikely read anything else by Grisham if this is the type of book he is going to write. I don't certainly don't read Grisham for the writing but the storytelling, and this is not a compelling story.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best
Review: i have read all of grishams books and i think this might be my least favorite...it is certainly not the action adventure that the pelican brief and the firm, and i acknowledge that you don;t necessarly want to keep reading the same formula kind of book, but this one seemed to drag on and did not have much interest...even a time to kill which was not the typcial action adventure, seemd to hold my interest more than this one...it seems to me that this is a contrived story about an idea of soemthing and will not be carried in my thoughts for a while like his others...i guess it was good enough for me to read, and finish, however...
Rating:
Summary: A welcome variation from his previous books
Review: A lawyer, formerly a brilliant specialist in medical malpractice litigation, on the edge of exclusion from his firm, is extracted by his boss from a $1,000/day rehab center for alcoholics. His last-chance task: to find in the tropical forest of Brazil a missionary doctor, the unsuspecting heiress to a huge (11 billion $) fortune left to her by her eccentric illegitimate father, the self-made 10th richest man in the U.S.A. who has recently sprung a olographic will as a spiteful surprise on a cohort of spend-thrift legitimate children who have been lulled by a second-last will into believing they would be the heirs to the estate; a few minutes later, the man kills himself. In the course of his search for the nun and in contact with the wilderness and with simple but true natives and after meeting the nun, the lawyer finds himself again, acquires a new perspective, drops his alcoholic habit and, after a bout of dengue fever, finds the will to renew his relationship with his estranged former families. The final development has a good twist and it should not be revealed beforehand. Mr Grisham gives in this book a welcome variation from his previous production: throughout the pages, the scene varies from the swamps and jungle of Brazil to the legal offices and courtrooms back home, where the crowd of disinherited relatives, who have speculated on an imminent immense fortune and already disposed of a lot of money not yet theirs, furiously contest the will with the help of a score of lawyers of varying levels and ethical standards, who however have in common the greed for their contingency fees. Eventually, everybody gets rich! Mr Grisham is to be commended on his idea, his development of it and his writership.
Rating:
Summary: Oustanding, Excellent, A Real Page Turner
Review: If you are wating for the paperback copy, I would say that you are waiting too long to read this book. Do yourself a favor, invest in the hard back edition. You want regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Great, compelling book
Review: This is the 6th Grisham book I have read. I've liked all of them very much, but this is the best. He does a superb job of developing the characters and getting the reader emotionally involved with them.
Rating:
Summary: The BEST of Grisham!
Review: This was my first Grisham read and was so good I immediately ordered all of his books from Amazon.com. I have now finished all of them and only Street Lawyer and The Partner are comparable in quality. Grisham holds you attention from the first paragraph to the last. I hated to see the book end--I wanted more!
Rating:
Summary: His best in years-and a Christian novel to boot!
Review: I just finished reading Scott Turow's latest, and I wasn't sure if I was ready for another legal page-turner (the Turow, btw, truly sucked lemons!). I certainly enjoyed this one. I was pleased to see a Christian theme of redemption as the centerpiece of a contemporary novel. This seems to be a growing phenomenon in American culture: more and more of us baby boomers are beginning to acknowledge our old-time religion in order to make sense of our lives. See "Three Kings" in the theaters for other examples of characters who find the strength to do heroic deeds through Christian faith. I'm encouraged.This was just a great book. I think the heirs could have been drawn a little more sympathetically, but their materialism and greed ring true to life. The sharpie lawyer Hark Gettys was fascinating; I hope to see him again sometime, Mr. Grisham.
Rating:
Summary: Superlative Grisham!!
Review: If you have hoped for Grisham to find his stride again, this should prove he has. I personally found a couple of his last books good, but out of step, so to speak. Testament comes roaring back yelling GRISHAM! in your face. This is classic Grisham. This is a Grisham story the end of which you don't know until the last couple of pages. This is Great Storytelling! You can read the synopsis, which is better than I could write here. Just believe me when I say to you that no synopsis can do the plot, story, and compelling nature of the story justice. Neither can it capture the sense of being somewhere else that Grisham captures masterfully. This is a Great Story from a Great Storyteller. Read this book, but be prepared to be pulled along by your eyelashes. Putting this hummer down is a real problem. GREAT BOOK!
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