Review | The Appeal by John Grisham

I read this in April of 2008 after Justice Nehring (of the Utah Supreme Court) told me he was listening to it on CD during his commute each day. Three quarters of my way through it, he told me it was not worth finishing. He was right.

Talk about much ado about nothing. The novel starts strong, provides an interesting conflict, and than (spoiler alert) completely drops the ball. Not that the bad guy has to lose and the good guy has to win every time, but the characters are skewed and distorted so much to the extreme that everything is black and white, not the gray that is the real world, and STILL the bad guy comes out on top.

One is left to believe that there is no real justice, that our political system leaves zero opportunity for the common man to be heard or represented, and that all persons wealthy are superficial and power hungry.

Sorry, but that’s not the real world. Nor does it make good fiction. I was left feeling both condescended and disappointed. Does Grisham really think we are so stupid?

On the other hand, a conspiracy theory always makes for fun fiction…for a few pages. Eventually, things have to resolve, and i’d like to feel good about the resolution.

[Previously posted at Publius Online]