Do you have an account on Goodreads.com? If you do, then you know they like you to set a goal for the number of books you’d like to read for the year. My goal this year is 52. Last years goal was 50, I made it by doing some serious binge reading in the months of November and December. I hope to spread it out a little more this year and average one a week, so I will be doing A LOT of reviews this year.
When you pick up a John Grisham novel, you know what to expect. Drama inside and outside the courtroom. You don’t expect a war novel, especially when it’s one of the stories set in Ford County Mississippi. Honestly, I ended up just skimming through about a third of the book which was recounting the horrors Pete faced during his POW times in the Philippines. I didn’t feel it added anything to the narrative. The objective, what I think the objective was anyway, of showing what Pete went through to get back to the perfect wife, and how it threw him off kilter when she wasn’t so perfect after all, could have been accomplished with much less verbiage. I’m not trying to be insensitive here, I promise. I was in the military, and while I didn’t see combat, my husband, dad, uncles and too many friends to count did, and I know it can change a person. I just don’t think it added to the story at all, and made it bog down for me…thus the skimming.
I don’t want to give anything away about the ending. I know it was supposed to be a big eyes-wide-gasping moment, but it was very anticlimactic to me. Maybe because I don’t live in the deep south and it’s not the 1940’s? Thinking about it, there was actually a duo revelation. The aforementioned eyes-wide-gasping moment. And the other moment when you realize that one lie told in a moment of panic can be like a grenade blowing up so many innocent lives and destroying what has taken generations to build.
Did I like this book? I’m not sure. It was a very frustrating book, just like most books I read where “honor” must be defended at all times. I think many times honor and ego get confused. Would I recommend this book? Probably, but I would let them know it’s not a typical Grisham story.