The Associate

John Grisham is an excellent writer. I have not read any of his books that I did not like. The book arrived in a very timely manner and was in excellent condition.

The 5 stars are for hubris. Mr. Grisham has gotten big enough to write and sell a book with no ending which takes hubris and possibly even courage. I could have written 10 (actually an infinite number) of better endings as this book actually has none. No conflict resolution, by any definable definition of the term, with all of us faithful Grisham readers left holding an empty bag. Contrary to some reviewers, I enjoyed the book in general and was eagerly looking forward to how this would all work out. Alas, 'twas not to be. So, 5 stars for hubris. I hope Mr. Grisham enjoys the money he extracted from me due to expectations built on an otherwise sterling career of story telling. Sorry, John. That's how it looks from this side of the page.

The Associate is an excellent book. One of Grishman's best. Very exciting & it certainly kept my interest thru the whole book

I read some of the reviews before I read this book to try and get a feel for it and from what I was reading I was like "uh oh", I hope this isn't a Grisham bomb!! Thankfully this book IS NOT near as bad as other make it out to be. It's actually not bad at all. This was a very fast paced book that was written precisely for the movies, which is not at all surprising since they announced the actors for the movie before they even released this book. Strange. Grisham truly has his own style and it's evident throughout. The ins and outs of a law firm, some background on the legal profession, the stories intertwined around the law, and the clever smart-alec law student. If you read books like I do and take it at face value, then you'll enjoy this story. If you read fiction (hence the keyword "fiction") and for have a need to say "wait, that can't happen", or "that doesn't make sense", then you won't like this book. Situations happen in this book that might be hard to believe but they are far from impossible. All fiction is based, in part, on some fact and that makes for an intriguing story line. Two companies that were partners are now bitter enemies due to a joint government project gone bad. And since this is good old America... THEY SUE! But this story goes so far beyond litigation. This deal is the richest in history and since money is the root of all evil... both sides pull out all the stops to get the upper hand and the methods they use would make a San Francisco liberal blush! :-) Well it would! They will blackmail, extort, lie, build, spend, recruit, hire, hide, spy, plant, harass, follow, and kill to get the job done. Our friend Kyle, unfortunately, will see pretty much every single one of these tactics up close and personal. He handles the stress much better than I would think possible. In the course of this story Kyle has to deal with: trying to graduate, studying for the bar, getting blindsided by a bogus rape charge that he thought was gone, "selling out" to his friends and family, FORCED to take a job he knew he would hate, and having his freedom stripped away. How about that for a graduation present? It gets so bad that Kyle even says he can't remember that last time he's even though about sex. WOW! I don't think my life has ever been that bad. Hehehehehehehe! I think a lot of the flack John is receiving is because this book does read like a fast action legal thriller. But that's because it is. Since the rights to the movie were released before the book I'm guessing that it was partly written as a screenplay. Either way I loved this book and had a lot of fun reading it. Although I have enjoyed all of Grisham's books, I think this one was the most entertaining I've read since `The Broker'. I have no doubt that you'll enjoy this one as well.

Don't start this book unless it's a Friday night, you won't want to stop reading!