Book Review: A Painted House by John Grisham

*****I loved it
**** Pretty good, I liked it
*** Still ok but nothing to "write home about"
** Kind of ok but tough to finish
* A total bore a dog, can't even finish, I really disliked it

A Painted House gets a ** "kind of ok, but tough to finish"

I kept waiting for this book to get better, but it does not. A long suffering tale about Cotton Farmers who are trying to eek out a living...lots of suffering....lots of "Southern Baptist, Methodist" Americana in the south taking place in the 1950's. All told by a seven year old, who is wise beyong his years. Wise my foot I've never met a seven year old this sophisticated...

Thank goodness it was an MP3 file listened to on my iPod because if I had to read this book I would never have finished it. The narrator was kind of nice to listen to, It was ok while I was riding my bike and or knitting. I certainly am not putting this one among my favorites. It is on the Best Seller List.... you would think that John Grisham book would be better than this.

I've enjoyed his other books but this one is a dog.

What the Critics Say

"The kind of book you read slowly because you don't want it to end." (Entertainment Weekly)

Well I'm going to have to watch the review's by Entertainment Weekly because they are way off on this one..

Publisher's Summary

"The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with three weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist-high to my father, over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop."

Thus begins the new novel from John Grisham, a story inspired by his own childhood in rural Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it.

For six weeks they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue, and sometimes each other. As the weeks pass Luke sees and hears things no seven-year-old could possibly be prepared for, and he finds himself keeping secrets that not only threaten the crop but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever.