Continuing the 2014 Reading Challenge with John Grisham

Continuing the 2014 Reading Challenge with John Grisham

How have I gotten to this point in my life without reading a book by John Grisham?  I can tell you that I have seen many of his books-turned-movies like The FirmThe Client, and The Pelican Brief.  All wonderful movies, and I’m sure even better books.  My husband is a huge fan of his and on one of our weekend trips, he had us listen to the audio book of Playing for Pizza, which I have to say was really interesting.  But nothing compares to when reading something that is what I consider, essentially John Grisham, a story about a trial.

So, when my reading group decided on Sycamore Row for our book for the month of February, I jumped at it!  It was going to be a new experience and I couldn’t wait.  I admit, I was a little nervous because sometimes when you hear about a famous author you come into their books with these high expectations.  You know?  So needless to say, mine were really high with this one…but I didn’t need to worry. This book was everything I expected and then some!  I wouldn’t have thought that there was so much about wills that I didn’t know about, or that you could even make them that interesting, but trust John Grisham to give you a story that catches you immediately and seamlessly keeps your attention throughout almost five hundred pages!

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Image courtesy of www.jgrisham.com

 

 

I read the synopsis of this book and realized that it was a prequel to the book/movie, A Time to Kill.  I rented the movie to make sure that I understood this new book and I was shocked by how much that story moved me.  I was glad that Grisham kept the interesting characters of Jake Brigance and Sheriff Ozzy.  I guess the only disappointment that I had with the story was that I hoping for an appearance, even if it was small, from Carl Lee Haley, but that’s okay.  It’s still an awesome story.

If I had to say just one thing that I liked about the book (and there were many), I would have picked that I really liked how you didn’t even know where the title of the book came from until you got to the end.  It was a clever way, I think, to keep the story rooted with you when it was done.  I’ll certainly never forget the importance of Sycamore Row. *smiles*

What about you?  Have you read this book?  What did you think?  Have you read John Grisham before?  What’s your favorite?

One thought on “Continuing the 2014 Reading Challenge with John Grisham

  1. I like almost all of JG’s books with The Firm, the Brethren and the Testament among my favorites. But they are all great and it’s hard to pick–Street Lawyer, Runaway Jury, Pelican Brief the list goes on and on.

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