One of my friends, asked me a while back, why I only review books I like. I told them that if I was going to bother writing a review it might as well be about a book I really enjoyed. But today I thought I might shift gears a bit and talk about a book (and an author) that I have found disappointing.

I keep wishing I liked John Grisham’s books more. Initially, I thought there was real potential in his writing. I loved The Pelican Brief and A Time to Kill, but his other writings have been mostly disappointing. I am not quite sure what it is about his books that do not deliver. Is it the interesting plot lines that seem to fade or fizzle at the end? Is it the lack of engaging dialogue? Is it the unevenness in character development? I am just not quite sure. But every once in awhile I will pick up a Grisham book to try and be disappointed all over again.

This was my experience with The Guardians. Initially it seemed like a really interesting plot line about a lawyer who devotes his time working on getting innocent people released from prison. The main character seemed interesting and committed and his cause just. But somewhere along the line, I lost interest in the characters and realized I was only continuing to read the book to see if they managed to get the prisoner released. Towards the end, I felt like Grisham, himself, had lost interest in his characters and was just going through the motions of writing this story. There are no glaring errors in Grisham’s books, but there seems to be a lack of spark, or life in them that somehow that makes me loose interest and become disappointed. This opinion is not widely shared since his books are very popular and Grisham has a huge following, which maybe why I keep hoping and every once awhile try again and see if this time he will get back that spark that made me enjoy his first few books so much.

Brenda’s Rating: **(2 Out Of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: No one.

Book Study worthy: no

Read in ebook format (library) format.