A Painted House

Rating:
Summary: Instant Classic
Review: John Grisham has written a book that I'm sure will one day be read in junior high classes. This book reminds me of Harper Lee's great book. It's neat to read a nice modern novel that you could recomend to your local clergyman without feeling embarassed.

Rating:
Summary: Grisham at his worst.
Review: If you are a John Grisham fan, do not pick this one up. He makes an awful attempt at being John Steinbeck. Some of the characters are fairly amusing but most are just downright shallow and uninteresting. Without his name this work would have never seen the light of day.

Rating:
Summary: This was a delightful story.
Review: This story is incredibly well written, about a young boy named Luke. By the age of eight, Luke has witnessed two murders and the birth of a baby. His family lives on a cotton farm, and this year the crop is not going to make it. The graphic descriptions of the intense labor young Luke endures while picking cotton with the hired Mexicans and hill people, peppered with humor and good story telling, is enough in itself to keep the reader enthralled. But John Grisham takes the story further, telling us about Pappy and Gran, who live on the farm with Luke and his parents and who become loving, warm characters that will live in your heart long after you have read this book. It is a story of intense love, of willful and comical disobedience, of unshared and shared secrets, and it is a story that will invite you in and give you a cup of coffee. Luke's house has never been painted, and an evil comment by one of the hill people about the unpainted house leaves Luke with a bitter taste in his mouth. When the only hill person to be liked in this story, a handicapped boy named Trot, takes it upon himself to paint the house, it falls to young Luke to finish the job. The storytelling begins, encircles, and ends with the painting of this much loved home, but John Grisham paints more than the house. He paints the Mexicans, the hill people who come for the summer months to help pick cotton, the poverty-stricken neighbors, and even the Uncle who is at war in Korea that never actually enters the story. There will be no doubt in your mind that John Grisham is capable of writing in any genre, and you will enjoy and remember this story for years to come.

Rating:
Summary: What might have been
Review: I tried to like this book - really, I did. I just couldn't. Grisham tries to evoke the spirit of Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird and just fails miserably. Luke had the potential of being a wonderful creation, but never quite made it. The characters are poorly developed and the backstory is essentially nonexistent. Perhaps the failure lies in the sheer number of characters? The worst part is that I kept thinking that the book would get better and it didn't. I hate when that happens.

Rating:
Summary: You probably should have put a lawyer in it
Review: Could not finish. First book from his stable of book that could not allow to run to completion. I can not give it away. Good luck if this is all you have to read.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: I am an avid reader that reads 2 or 3 books a week. Not so with this one - it was soooooo slow and dull.

Rating:
Summary: A coming of age novel
Review: As a southern person I would reccommend this novel to anyone who is an avid reader. This is not your typical Grisham novel involving courtroom drama. However, I believe this was one of the finest pieces of literature I have ever read. Grisham's depiction of Luke could not have been more real. This seven year old boy experiences events and tragedies that many adults have a hard time coming to grips with. Grisham's style of humor in the novel also grabbed me as well. I know what it is like to hear a story told over and over agin only to have it changed to almost epic like status. As an educator I would say pick this novel up today, I was not able to put it down. Grisham was not affraid to expand his style, and he hit a home run with this piece.

Rating:
Summary: Self-Indulgence
Review: John Grisham has given us so many entertaining stories that I suppose he deserves to indulge himself a bit. I hope he doesn't do it too often or he will find himself losing readers. This book was filled with laborsome description and narrative. Action was sparse, suspense and literary tension almost non-existent. Worst of all, however, was the totally unbelievable seven-year child speaking through the voice of an articulate 40-year-old man. This is kind of surprising, because if I remember right, he did a pretty good job with an eleven year old kid in "The Client." I wish John Grisham luck. I hope this book worked off his need for self indulgence and clears the way for getting back down to work entertaining us.

Rating:
Summary: A tragedy and a comedy
Review: The story and the style of writing were very interesting, but the book contains the funniest story that I ever read -- about a first time northern visitor to Arkansas who had to use the bathroom/outhouse, and how the seven year old boy got revenge(?).

Rating:
Summary: A Waste of Time and Type
Review: I usually read a Grisam novel writhing a day. Ie, it's hard to put down. This one: I took a month to read this one. It put me to sleep several times. Why? Grisham had no substance to this novel. A pre-teen who lived on an Arkansas farm. Picket cotton with family. Employed Mexicanos, white trash (definition back then becasue they needed the work so they could lay around all year), and any other to help family pick cotton before the mechanical equipment. Had a sexual encounter with an OLDER female, birth of a baby by a white trash neighbor. A flood. Out of money went North to work at a job to come back and spend it on sharecropper land. What an original. Notice no top ten finish NOW. Grisham needs to realize that people PAY for a GOOD book not a family diary. Please JOHN write us a book.

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