GENRE: Realistic Fiction / Mystery
HONORS: None
REVIEW: Theodore Boone is the son of two lawyers and an aspiring lawyer himself. When the biggest murder trial in decades comes to the town courthouse Theodore wants to be there all the time. He soon gets more than he bargained for when he learns about a secret witness who could blow the case wide open. Unfortunately, the secret witness is an illegal immigrant. What should Theodore do? The book ends in a mistrial and readers will have to read the next book to see what happens in that trial and what happens in a few other cases that are briefly touched on in this first book.
OPINION: I have loved John Grisham's books since The Firm so I was intrigued when I saw that he had ventured into children's books. I enjoyed the premise and the basic crime set-up was pretty good, but as I got to about 30 pages from the end, I realized it was not going to come to a satisfying end. I knew there was a second book, The Abduction, but did not realize it was so closely tied to the first. I thought it was just further adventures. The jury is still out on whether John Grisham should continue with children's books or stick with what has worked for him before. Theodore Boone is going to need to step up his game in order to keep his audience.
IDEAS: This book takes awhile to get going and would be best in a bookgroup where the leader could motivate and discuss what is happening. It would probably be best to set it up ahead of time that it is not a standalone book so that readers are not anticipating a clean ending. After reading the book and before reading the sequel reader's can guess how they think the various threads will come together.
No comments:
Post a Comment