Thursday, April 2, 2009

Review: The Associate by John Grisham

I have been a John Grisham fan from the beginning. I have read all of his books and thoroughly enjoyed each one. I do have my favorites as you can imagine. His latest book, The Associate, will not make my list of favorites as it wasn't quite up to his normal standards, but it was still an enjoyable book.

Summary: Kyle McAvoy grew up in his father’s small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal, and his future has limitless potential.

But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn’t want—even though it’s a job most law students can only dream about.

Three months after leaving Yale, Kyle becomes an associate at the largest law firm in the world, where, in addition to practicing law, he is expected to lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison, if not get him killed.

With an unforgettable cast of characters and villains—from Baxter Tate, a drug-addled trust fund kid and possible rapist, to Dale, a pretty but seemingly quiet former math teacher who shares Kyle’s “cubicle” at the law firm, to two of the most powerful and fiercely competitive defense contractors in the country—and featuring all the twists and turns that have made John Grisham the most popular storyteller in the world, The Associate is vintage Grisham.


It was a page turner. It had great potential with interesting characters. However it felt more like a new writer who didn't quite know how to flesh it all out wrote the book. The ending was a bit anti-climatic. But, I still enjoyed the book. It was good but not great as expected.

Rating: 3/5 stars



2 comments:

bermudaonion said...

I've been looking forward to this one. I hope Grisham isn't running out of steam like Cornwell did.

Marie Cloutier said...

thanks for the review. i've never read grisham so it's fun to hear about one of his books from a fan! :-)