The Street Lawyer

Rating:
Summary: keeps you looking around every corner for one more suprise!!
Review: An outstanding example of keeping the reader guessing which way this story is going to turn. I thought this was one of Grishams knights in shining armor.I could only envision James Earle Jones as Mordecai Green. **** Star rating. Read this book, you wont be dissapointed.

Rating:
Summary: The Street Lawyer is an action filled legal novel.
Review: Book Review: John Grisham is known for writing action filled legal novels. The Street Lawyer is his ninth, and most recent novel, which fits that category quite well. It's suspenseful plot and fast pace mix well with the emotional and legal themes presented. Grisham ties these diverse aspects of the main character, Michael Brock's life together in an interesting and understandable way. Instead of beginning with background information about the main characters, and the usual slow moving start, Grisham begins with a hostage situation which takes place and is resolved within the first twenty pages. As the plot goes on the reader finds out more and more about the characters. But it is done in a smooth, flowing way. Much unlike the style of James Joyce, where you are thrown into the middle of a character's life and left confused and uninformed (or at least I was). The hostage situation in the first chapter is resolved by the sniping of the captor, a homeless man who seems to have no intentions of harming anyone. He just wants to grab the attention of a few rich lawyers for long enough to let them know how much they have and how little they share with the needy. After hearing the vagabond's pleas and seeing him killed Michael Brock contemplates leaving his prestigious law firm, Drake & Sweeny, to pursue a career in street law, defending the poor and homeless. At the same time he has to face the fact that his relationship with his wife, Claire, is deteriorating and near an end. Finding a file containing a list of names of people who were illegally evicted from an apartment building, including the name of the bum who held Michael hostage and a family who dies during a snowstorm , helps him make his decision to leave the firm and go into public-interest law. Michiko Kakutani, of The New York Times, has a very different opinion on The Street Lawyer. He feels that Grisham is predictable and lacks talent. He stated that "Mr. Grisham has never been particularly good at creating characters with any real emotional depth,"(Kakutani 1-2) I feel that Michael Brock displays an emotional side that is realistic as well as the struggle that he goes through between pursuing happiness through money, power and material things or through using his knowledge and talent to help others as well as satisfy himself. His decision may not seem very realistic in today's society but his struggle and confusion are definitely realistic. And there must be some people who really do chose to follow their giving, unselfish side otherwise the world would be in a lot worse shape than it is. I had never read a John Grisham novel before The Street Lawyer. I had seen the movie versions of The Pelican Brief, The Firm and A Time To Kill, and enjoyed them all, so I expected to enjoy his writing and I did. It isn't a very challenging read but it is a good book to relax and be entertained by, and if they come out with a movie I will definitely see it. Works Cited: Grisham, John. The Street Lawyer. New York: Doubleday,1998. Kakutani, Michiko. A Lawyer Converts To Virtue .The New York Times,10 Feb.1998,late ed.

Rating:
Summary: Good reading but not typical Grisham.
Review: Thought this was a particularly uncomfortable book to read. Anyway, I did enjoy the book as it was a slight departure from Grisham's typical fare.

Rating:
Summary: As Good As expected
Review: Who says that Grisham cant write a good novel and he wrote that one very well.

Rating:
Summary: THIS TIME, GRISHAM WAS UNINSPIRED
Review: I would characterize this novel as mildly interesting. Unfortunately, we have all grown to expect riveting storytelling from Mr. Grisham, therefore one inevitably feels let down by the somewhat predictable plot of THE STREET LAWYER. Grisham's novels have been often labeled as legal thrillers. Yet this story would never be characterized as a thriller; instead we are presented with a slow paced and uneventful narrative of a lawyer who suddenly is determined to fight for the plight of the downtrodden.

Rating:
Summary: beautifully symbolic
Review: This is only the second Grisham book I have read and I enjoyed it. I can feel the anguish the main character feels, as he heroically deals with important issues in our society. The critics who missed the beauty of entertainment intertwined with real life problems, are an example of those who choose not to see.

Rating:
Summary: John Grisham Fan...
Review: I have read all of the books by John Grisham in order...always waiting for the next one to come out. This book was good but not his best by far, I was actually able to put it down. I still give it 4 stars because it is still John Grisham.

Rating:
Summary: Go read it! You'll enjoy it.
Review: So, it's not as good as The Firm, but this book is captivating. It kept me hooked until i had it finished. It's a little predictable, but I would still recommend it. A very fun and entertaining book!

Rating:
Summary: Has a great start but begins to slow down as it progresses
Review: John Grisham is back with another mind compelling novel which starts out great but begins to fade as the novel continues. It is a story about a big time lawyer from the firm Drake and Sweeney in Washington D.C. who takes a 90,000 dollar pay cut to ansewer his true calling as a street lawyer. He begins to investagate the death of a homeless family and finds alittle more then he was looking for. Take the time and read it, you may have to fight threw the begging but it is worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Typically presented, but enough with the preaching.
Review: Grisham reaffirms his ability to spin a good yarn here, but once again you are left to sift through his developing habit of proselytizing to find the story. I read this kind of book for escapist entertainment, and I don't need John Grisham to lecture me about the plight of the homeless any more than I needed him to lecture me on the horrors of the gas chamber.

This guy was a lot more fun to read when he stuck to basic issues and didn't have a morality lesson interwoven into the narrative; if I wanted to read books that embraced a political agenda, I wouldn't be buying a Grisham novel in the first place. This author is much better when he just tells a story than he is when he uses the novel for political activism.