Book Club Extravaganza!!

Last week we had our monthly book club and the book choice was The Litigators by John Grisham.

One of the reasons I love being in a book club is because I’m exposed to books that I wouldn’t normally read. However, that also means that I’m going to be introduced to some not so great books, like this month’s pick. Now a lot of people like Grisham novels, unfortunately I’m not one of them.  I don’t know if it’s because I feel like they’re all the same or what, but I’m not a fan.

 So this book centers on the lives of three lawyers. Two partners of a small law firm who are ethically questionable and, in addition to taking crap cases, they love chasing ambulances .  Literally, the firm is located on a dangerous corner where accidents are frequent and potential plaintiffs are plentiful.  By chance David, a third lawyer who has been slaving away for a big law firm, joins the small firm after he suffers a mental breakdown at work. David is soon sucked into their schemes to get rich quick by suing Big Pharma and from there the reader gets to watch the train wreck that these lawyers call practicing law.

There was nothing that could have saved this book for me so I’m just going to give the top three reasons why I didn’t enjoy it. First, Grisham took the easy road and pin holed these characters into the typical stereotype of a personal injury attorney. He described them as money grubbing men who felt no shame in lying to clients and posing as doctors to sign up plaintiffs lying bed ridden in hospital gurneys. I know personal injury attorneys and Grisham’s description caused offense. Second, the story was too predictable. Had the story been focused more on criminal law instead of torts I probably wouldn’t have minded it as much but no, the story was on one of my most hated subjects in law school ever, bloody torts. Lastly, being a lawyer I deal with laws and lawyers all day (Although the lawyers I work with are pretty awesome!) and the last thing I want to do is read about disenchanted and unethical lawyers on my off time.

 Bottom line if I were you I would skip this one.

Top Ten Tuesday

And onto more important things! The Broke and the Bookish host a weekly meme: Top Ten Tuesday, and each week we’re given topic or theme to list our top ten preferences. This week’s topic is:

Top Ten Books I Think Would Make Great Book Club Picks:

I love this topic and I’m glad that it’s my first “Top Ten” category. So here are my Top Ten:

1. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. A true story of murder and the lives of eccentric Savannahians in the Old South written from the first hand knowledge of a Northerner. This book will draw anyone in and generate much discussion surrounding Who Dunn’it.

2. The Shadow of The Wind by  Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Lucia Graves. A story of love, a secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and destruction of one author’s books. This is a novel which is beautifully written and will have something for everyone.

3. The Harry Potter Series. Because who doesn’t want to talk with other people about the Boy Who Lived?

4. Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein. I have yet to read this book but the author takes a look at negative implications surrounding girl power and         I would love to hear other people’s take on her perspective.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. A book which follows the adventures of our bodies after we’re dead and gone. I was particularly interested in a hill in Tennessee where bodies are left to rot in order to gain information on the time of death of murder victims. 

In the Woods by Tana French. A past crime and present crime eerily similar, both with one man in common. This book stumped the hell out me and I recommend it as a book club read if only to hear others’ theories.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles. A short novel that will leave you intrigued days after you finish it.

Jubilee by Margaret Walker. A novel that took the author thirty years to research, it tells the story of one girl, daughter to a white slave owner and his black mistress, as she lives through slavery, the civil war, and the reconstruction.

The Dreams of Ada by Robert Mayer. A true story depicting the disappearance of a young girl in a small town. Reminiscent of Capote’s In Cold Blood.

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. An inspiring story about one little boy’s life growing up in the racial filled country of South Africa.

And onto the next . . . I am currently enthralled in the third book of the Game of Thrones series (Well really the Fire and Ice Series but no one knows it's called that) A Storm of Swords by Geroge R.R. Martin.