The Firm by John Grisham

I got this book recently at an op shop (an awesome op shop) for $1. I had a law lecturer who used to rant and rave about John Grisham, so I thought I should try it out. To be honest, it seemed to me like a book that got written with the intent for a movie to later be made of it (which there was starring a young Tom Cruise). It was very focused on the melodrama the "OH NO WE ARE GOING TO DIE" sort of phenomenon but it's obvious to see why it made the Bestseller list in a number of publications. It's a book that is really quite difficult to put down, I mean I was trying to read this book walking down Lambton Quay just because I wanted to know what happened. In that way it effectively in my mind demonstrated what a thriller book should be like, because many authors seem unsure of how to portray a scene which will keep someone reading. I think the ability to create a thriller was also evident in other bestsellers, for example The Da Vinci Code, it is that genre and other parts of the book which make it so attractive to such a large proportion of the public.
There are things I dislike about books like this, for one even if I don't like a main character I like to understand them, or understand what has made them into the person they are. This book really had very little character development and what it did have just made the main character look arrogant, and the other characters seem dull and uninteresting.
I can see how it translated well into a movie though, like even better than The Da Vinci Code did because, there was nothing that really needed to be explained and a lot of running around being chased by various people.
I sort of now regard Grisham books as my lazy books, like easy books to read if I'm not in a thinking mood, sort of like The Babysitters Club books were when I was little and it's always good to have a few of those sorts of books up your sleeve.


Next up: The Awakening by Kate Chopin