Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!
How does it compare to audio works by the same author?
Excellent
Advantages:
Great description of a bygone American era
Disadvantages:
Not the most fast - paced book in the world
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Finally - a Grisham book that is not about the law. What a relief. I have long been a fan of Grisham's writing style, yet have always thought it could be put to better use. In ‘A Painted House’ it certainly has. This is a very personal book, partly because it is semi-autobiographic and partly because, like many other successful American novels, it is told through the eyes of a child.
Luke Chandler lives with his parents and grandparents on a rural Arkansas cotton farm in the 1950s. He has never gone further than the local town: he was told the South won the Civil War and finds it hard to imagine places as far away as Korea, where his uncle Ricky is fighting. The book is largely a tale of Luke losing his innocence – leaving behind his childhood and eventually, his childhood home.
Throughout the book, although the narrative is never action-packed it is truly gripping. The Chandler family, on the very edge of ruin, struggle though murder, shame and flooding. All the events of the book are amplified in significance through little Luke’s eyes and his perspective on the story is what really makes this book fascinating.
Although not everyone’s cup of tea, A Painted House is a thoughtful and escapist book that shows optimism in the face of adversity and exudes youthful hope and vigour. The descriptions of Arkansas really capture the state at a moment in time – Grisham’s mastery of description is comparable with the Oklahoma of Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’. At the end of the day this is a very American book, with American values and themes at its heart. Far from being a rose-tinted nostalgia trip for Grisham, it is instead a tale of a time when life was hard and horizons small, people good and unambitious.
Let’s hope there is more of this and less of the lawyer shenanigans in the future.
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How does it compare to similar audio books?
Excellent
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shenanigans than with the roots of that country life which taught him much of what he knows about being human. In the early autumn of 1952, seven-year-old Luke Chandler is ...
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