Mini Review
I’m trying to get started on the southern reading challenge, but it is slow goin’. I didn’t find all three books that I chose so I picked up the Fannie Flagg book, but I haven’t started it. Instead I started John Grisham’s The Innocent Man.
I’m 100 pages in. I have this compulsion to finish each book that I start. If it is bad I always hold out hope that it will get better so I don’t put it aside. In this case, I am very close to making an exception. This book is going NOWHERE! OK, I’m ranting. It is based on a true story, so maybe I am expecting too much. It has been years since I have welcomed Grisham into my reading world. When he started writing for movies, I stopped reading. I guess I expected to pick up The Innocent Man and read the riveting writing that I was accustomed to years ago. I went on Amazon to read reader reviews, just to see if I was being to harsh. It was very helpful to me. I need to realize that fiction and nonfiction are vastly different. The purpose of this book is to expose the failings of the legal system and it certainly does so. I do think Grisham could have done a better job organizing the work and telling this story, however, it is too soon for me to be trying to review it.
If anyone is considering this work, go into with the right mindset.
The other thing that irks me, and it is my own fault for making assumption, it doesn’t take place in MS or the deep South like other Grisham works. Although, I believe the legal/judicial system portrayed in the book can be applied to Smalltown, America.
June 18 2007 10:48 pm | Southern Reading Challenge
June 19th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Which Fannie Flagg book? I heart her big time.
June 19th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven…I’m going to start it tonight
June 19th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
I hate to admit that I’ve never read Grisham…
June 19th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Oh No a Dud! I’m so sorry!
If it helps, Publisher’s Weekly says Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven is the “feel good” book for this summer.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Sage, I was absorbed by A Time To Kill and The Firm. I also liked The Testament, the BOOK version of The Client, and the BOOK version Skipping Christmas (movie was Christmas with the Kranks). I’ve read others but enjoyed them so little that I can’t remember the title. I do remember that I couldn’t get into The Pelican Brief.
Maggie, I will give it a solid chance. I think I just expected too much out of it.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Okay now I have to do math to comment on your blog? hehehe.. just kidding. I agree with what you said. I just wish there was an “easy” way to fix the problems - but there is no easy fix. Rich schools do well, poor schools suffer - private schools do well sometimes, homeschooling (with very dedicated parents) does well sometimes… PS do well sometimes… AH!
There has to be a better way.