general

Departing from his legal suspense novels, Bleachers, is a wonderful change of pace for Grisham. I love Grisham's non-legal books and have found them all to be wonderfully entertaining and this book is no exception. The scene where the football players were reminiscing over a past played game was wonderful and the reader felt "right there" reliving it all with them.

Grisham reminds us that people are not what they seem. Appearances can be and are deceiving as we see with Coach Eddie Rake. Inspiring each and every one of his players, Coach Rake's influence flowed into all of their lives long after the glory days of high school football playing was over.

It isn't until Rake's impending demise from cancer that most of his former players gather for the inevitable and reminiscent over their "glory" days and what Coach Rake has meant to each of them and to their small town as well.

Coach Rake has touched each life that was under his tutelage and more often than not, left an indelible and lasting impression. The former players also get to see a more compassionate side of Coach Rake that many did not know existed!

I found the book to be not only humorous, but uplifting and inspiring as well. Grisham reminds us that we all make mistakes throughout the course of our lives - what we decide to do with those grievous errors either makes us or breaks us.

Highly recommend!

....that wrote novels that I could hardly wait to get my hands on? I used to cringe at the though of having to wait for my next Grisham-fix!

Bleachers is a pleasant enough tale with a somewhat interesting, albeit annoyingly predictable storyline, I will give it that. But I'd be willing to bet that for those of us who remember the spell-binding and positively riveting storylines of his earlier novels, the fact that Bleachers is somewhat interesting is of very little solace.

Those of you who know his work, know just what I'm talking about. I don't know exactly when it started, maybe it was with Painted House, but Grisham's novels have become absolutely forgettable. I used to have no qualms with parting with my hard-earned dollars on hardbacks of his stuff so I wouldn't have to wait a whole year for the paperback to come out! Now, I feel like I got taken for the $5 I paid for the paperback version of Bleachers at my local WalMart! If Grisham's the next effort is as innocuous and cookie-cutter as Bleachers was, I'll keep my money and look for his next attempt as I'm sifting through the inevitable stack of unwanted books at my neighbor's future garage sale.

This is the first Grisham book that I have read. I was very satisfied with it overall. Despite being a quick read (less than 200 pages ) it has characters that are detailed very well and a great main plot. The only blemish is that it might have been too quick of a read. With it being written so well I really couldn't out it down and finished it in less than 3 days. I would reccomend this book to anyone who has ever played organized football at a high school level or higher. But you don't have to have been involved in sport to enjoy Grisham's great style. I also recently enjoyed two other books, though they were totally different from this one. The first was Hiaasen's "Skinny Dip," and the second was "The Bark of the Dogwood."