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tjgreads 's review for:
A Painted House
by John Grisham
Before this one, I hadn't read a John Grisham book since The Firm or something back in high school. I guess this 1950's story of an Arkansas cotton farm family, which contains not a single lawyer, isn't a typical Grisham legal thriller, and I thought that was just fine.
(spoiler warning)
It didn't blow my socks off; I thought the characters other than little Luke, the 7-year old narrator, were a bit flat and the conflicts were predictable and, in the end, anticlimactic (both killers disappear, Luke's uncle doesn't return from the Korean war). That's not to say it isn't an enjoyable, simple read.
My favorite part was when a cousin and his new "Yankee" wife (from Michigan), who is deathly afraid of snakes, come to visit the farm. Luke does not like her, and when she goes to use the outhouse he tells her not to come out because a "shitsnake" is right outside! Ha ha ha. The family scene afterward when they confront Luke, hiding smiles, and then have to punish him, is pretty funny, too.
(spoiler warning)
It didn't blow my socks off; I thought the characters other than little Luke, the 7-year old narrator, were a bit flat and the conflicts were predictable and, in the end, anticlimactic (both killers disappear, Luke's uncle doesn't return from the Korean war). That's not to say it isn't an enjoyable, simple read.
My favorite part was when a cousin and his new "Yankee" wife (from Michigan), who is deathly afraid of snakes, come to visit the farm. Luke does not like her, and when she goes to use the outhouse he tells her not to come out because a "shitsnake" is right outside! Ha ha ha. The family scene afterward when they confront Luke, hiding smiles, and then have to punish him, is pretty funny, too.