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Title: The Rainmaker by John Grisham ISBN: 0-440-22165-X Publisher: Island Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1996 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.28 (291 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Not his best work
Comment: This is my least favorite Grisham book. Aside from the underdeveloped plot, the characters are very flat. And, the story, especially the ending, is so completely far-fetched, it makes the endings of The Firm and The Pelican Brief seem plausible.
I don't understand the hype this book receives, it certainly doesn't deserve it. Grisham knows how to keep the reader captivated, so it's disappointing to read something like this and know that he could have done a lot better.
Rating: 5
Summary: Had me yelling on a crowded train!
Comment: Well... well... well. After reading The Street Lawyer, The Runaway Jury and then The Partner, I thought I had seen the best of Mr Grisham and settled down to give my racing heart a rest by reading his other works which surely can't be as nail biting as The Partner, or The Runaway Jury.... I was proved very very wrong. Perhaps Im being nieve thinking that i can have a 'stress free' time reading Grisham but The Rainmaker is possably the best book Ive ever read! The plot didn't appeal to me at the outset. After The Partner, an insurance company being sued sounds rather tame... I guess I should have known better. The twists, turns, highs and lows of Rudy's quest for justice had me laughing, crying, cursing and when the section U incident was occuring in the court room, i found myself yelling and laughing out loud in the middle of a crowded train. The ending for me, at first, left me dissapointed and confused why Grisham had done this, but now I look on it as the most relevent part of the book... the point of the whole thing being that dispite all hard effort and what seems to be a fair result at the outset, life if inevitably unfair. The last few pages were a nice touch though (there has to be some light at the end of the tunnel). A must for any reader!
Rating: 2
Summary: Baffled
Comment: I think I understand some of the enthusiasm for The Rainmaker; I too found that I wanted to keep reading, that the plot was energetic enough to push me through the pages. When I read overall praise of the book, however, I'm baffled. It was entertaining, but very flawed. I found the characters flat and dimensionless, and never even felt as if I had a sense of protagonist Rudy Baylor. He seemed a living stereotype-- the bright, well-meaning, down on his luck, little-guy lawyer, blue-collar background, who takes on "the man" in one of his many incarnations: an enormous white-collar corporate conspiracy. Satisfying, but hardly original. There was no greater depth to either Rudy's character or the conflict; both were kept on a simple, surficial level, one most conducive to a fast-paced plot.
Indeed, most of the characters were slightly embellished stereotypes, were vehicles for plot and never real people. Rudy's bosses were the heart-of-gold petty criminals; the opposing lawyers were Ivy League money-grubbers, etc., etc. The girl, Kelly, came off the worst. I found sitting through the patronizing relationship between Kelly and Rudy sickening-- Grisham and feminism ought to be on bad terms after this book. She was a battered woman whom Rudy set out to rescue, but she was never given any autonomy or a character of her own. She was only an idea, a helplessness embodied, a vehicle by which we were meant to see Rudy's chivalry and good-heartedness. The scenes of him dispensing advice to her, with a total disrespect for the person she might have been, the way she coped with her situation (which was of course far out of his understanding), were wretched. But, like any good cardboard cut-out, she obediently fell in love with him and seemed grateful for his condescension.
The book was, as I said, satisfying, amusing, but too easy. Grisham took the easy way out at every step. We never had to think about sympathizing with the bad guys; we never had to contemplate the ethical dilemmas before us, because the 'right' answer was always clear. We didn't have to struggle through the inner conflicts of the characters because there weren't any such conflicts and there were barely any characters. If you're home sick, The Rainmaker is a fine choice. But for substance look elsewhere.
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Title: The Runaway Jury by John Grisham ISBN: 0440221471 Publisher: Island Books Pub. Date: 27 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Partner by John Grisham ISBN: 0440224764 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 07 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: A Time to Kill by John Grisham ISBN: 0440211727 Publisher: Island Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1992 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Chamber by John Grisham ISBN: 0440220602 Publisher: Island Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Street Lawyer by John Grisham ISBN: 0440225701 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 05 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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