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 Firm, The 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!

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?