The Associate
by John Grisham
|
List Price: Our Price: $1.49 You Save: $26.46 (95%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Associate
Book Review: The Associate - A Disappointing Story
Summary: 2 Stars
The Associate is the story of Kyle McAvoy, a talented third year law student at Yale who is the editor of the Yale Law Review.
After an evening of coaching an inner city basketball team in New Haven, Kyle is approaced by two men claiming to be FBI agents. They ask him to accompany them to a nearby coffee shop where he is urged to meet with a detective from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania police department. Kyle is shown a video taken at a drunken party attended by a small group of fraternity brothers from a Pittsburgh university five years previously. It becomes apparent to Kyle that two of his then fraternity brothers may have raped a young, drunk co-ed. Kyle realizes he was at this party and had witnessed the two fraternity brothers having sex with this co-ed who is now claiming that the act was not consensual. Kyle is told that unless he cooperates with the detective this video will be made public thus destroying a promising legal career. Kyle is told he will take a job with a prominent law firm in New York City which is amoung the world's larges law firms even though Kyle has made arrangements to work at a public aid law firm in the south. Kyle is told he will be doing "spy" work for a group involved in a law suit which will soon be filed by the firm at which he will work even though divulging such information will be a breach not only of attorney client privilege but also of his duty to his new employer. Kyle elects to work at this firm to avoid the release of this video. The story then describes Kyle's day to day work at the firm which is intersersed with visits to his "contact" person to whom is is to divulge the requested information. Kyle goes through the motions of being an associate at this firm and it becomes clear to the reader what information he is required to divulge and why the stakes are so high. The reader is led to believe that the life of this talented young lawyer is on the cusp of a life and death situation only to be terribly disappointed at the story's conclusion. I won't hint at what this is but say only that the reader should be prepared for great disappointment.
Book Review: Definitely not Grisham at his finest
Summary: 2 Stars
Having read all of his legal based fiction novels, this is easily the worst of them. The character of Kyle McAvoy isn't anywhere near being as interesting as Mitch McDeere in The Firm. In fact I'm not quite sure why this book was being touted as being the next incarnation of The Firm.
While on the surface it seems similar to The Firm, it quickly becomes obvious that it was just a marketing gimmick to sell a book that really isn't unique in any way. Most of the characters are bland and one dimensional. You don't feel like you ever really get to know them. Bennie could have been an extremely interesting character, instead every time he shows up in the story, his behavior is the same for the most part. Grisham tries to convey that he is a dangerous man by trying to paint Kyle as being afraid of him. While it may seem like Kyle thinks he is dangerous, Kyle then goes on to do many things that convey the exact opposite; Bennie isn't quite that dangerous.
This book had a lot of potential to be a good novel, but it just falls way short of the finish line. Readers are stuck with a final product that never really develops strongly. Most of the characters are underdeveloped, and you never really feel much of a connection to some of them, or at least a good understanding of who they are. There is just too much ambiguity surrounding most of the characters. The ending is just not fulfilling in any manner, and it seems like Grisham was making a mad dash to the finish line. Like the characters of the novel, it's ambiguous at best and leaves more questions unanswered than answered. Grisham was always good at bringing closure to his novels, and this along with The Appeal does very little to bring closure at the end.
I hope this isn't a sign of things to come with Grisham. There's nothing more irritating than a talented author who just goes through the motions to pick up another payday.
My recommendation would be to get this from your local library because it is definitely not even worth the price being charged for it. Poor effort by a good author.
Book Review: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "NON-BELIEVABLE BEGINNING... DECENT MIDDLE... AND THEN THE READER IS DROPPED OFF A CLIFF AT THE END"
Summary: 2 Stars
Kyle McAvoy is a twenty-five-year-old editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal... and in his final year of law school... with no criminal record... when his whole world is irrevocably turned upside down. His "possible" involvement over five years earlier... in a "fraternity-boy" gang rape case while attending Duquesne University... is brought back to life... with possible "new" evidence. Kyle is confronted by a gaggle of FBI agents... and cops... or are they??? He is "set-up" in a "brilliant" (if you are gullible enough... to accept... what the author foolishly asks the reader to
swallow) blackmail scheme... and for any potential reader... with even the smallest amount of common sense... you will become very disappointed in the very early going. From there Kyle is forced (through blackmail) to take a job with the LARGEST LAW FIRM IN THE WORLD... and then gets involved in a legal case between Trylon Aeronautics... a privately held... multi-billion dollar defense contractor... and Bartin Dynamics... a publicly held... and also a multi-billion dollar defense contractor... who are both involved in... an estimated EIGHT-HUNDRED-BILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT... which would be the largest in the Pentagon's history!
So after starting off with a non-believable blackmail job... the chips that are put on the table... are quite impressive... but despite hidden cameras... innumerable bugging devices... constant... non-traceable... nor definable... bad guys... tailing every good guy... old fraternity buddies... going in and out of rehab... miniature hand-carried video cameras... guns... top secret... super-duper computers... manufactured without a manufacturer's name... even a murder...
Despite all this... the reader is just dropped off the end of a cliff... without any semblance of closure... and the author... simply ignores all the questions he created for you... on the previous three-hundred-seventy-two-pages... and with an absolute disregard... to the fact... that you have invested your valuable time and money... he then merely gives you the "bums-rush".
Book Review: John Grisham's "The Associate"
Summary: 3 Stars
I have been a John Grisham fan for about ten years now. The first Grisham book I read was A Time to Kill, which is still my favorite. Other Grisham books I have enjoyed are The Rainmaker, The Testament and A Painted House.
In recent years, I have been disappointed by Grisham's output. Nevertheless, during a brief beach vacation earlier this summer, I picked up Grisham's newest: The Associate (DoubleDay, 2009). The Associate proves that Grisham is still able to craft an interesting story.
(Warning: Spoilers Follow)
The Associate is about Kyle McAvoy, a promising law student who has a wild past. During his college years, he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and almost was charged (falsely) with rape. Years later, a sinister group of lawyers show Kyle a video that places him at the scene of the crime, and then they blackmail him into becoming a spy in the firm in which he works.
If I could sum up this book with one Bible verse, it would be this: "Be sure your sins will find you out." The sins of Kyle and his friends in their twenties cause a ripple effect. The girl who claims she was raped now hates men and has turned to lesbianism. The other guys involved are trying to get on with their lives, but several are haunted by guilt.
The Associate casts a negative light on frat house parties. Grisham exposes the lifestyle that many in America have come to see as innocent fun or the proverbial "sowing your wild oats." Grisham's book demonstrates that some actions have consequences years after we commit them.
Still, the book is ultimately unsatisfying. The end of the book shows how Kyle is able to gain his freedom, but the perpetrators of the blackmail are never brought to justice. The ending may make the book a little more realistic, but most readers will hunger to see the criminals brought to justice.
The Associate is not Grisham's best, but it is probably one of his better books of late. You might enjoy the fast-paced narrative if you are planning a vacation this summer.
Book Review: Shamefully Boring
Summary: 1 Stars
Other reviewers have mentioned many of the unfortunate qualities of this book - poor character development, an end that leaves many story lines up in the air. I agree with them all.
Things start very well - Kyle, a bright law student at Yale, makes a stupid mistake and is now being blackmailed. But why? That is one of the questions that is answered on the surface [so his life won't be ruined with an internet video which shows a possible rape even though he is not in the rape part of the video] but it is never answered below the surface [why do the blackmailers go to so much trouble - what's really in it for them?]. That is the biggest unanswered question: Who are they and what do they hope to gain?
So our boy Kyle romps through the novel, followed by the blackmailing thugs, he is really bright at times and inexplicably bone-headed at others. But this is John Grisham so as a reader who has not just read all his books but has collected them, I was willing to believe that all would be made clear at the end.
For about half-of the story enough threats and difficulties piled up to keep me reading and our boy looks to be one step ahead of the blackmailers, then we get fairly good account of a busy day in a big, unscrupulous law firm - who cares? Am I suppose to go march in the streets for fair play for baby lawyers? And maybe those newbies don't have time for sex or romance but, hey, this is fiction, I want to read about cliff-hanging love affairs and illicit sex. Kyle's love life is just pain boring.
The best parts are the espionage and thriller type scenes but I ended up going to sleep about three-fourths of the way through the book. And, as for the last 20-pages? I put the book down, watched the 5 o'clock news and fed the cats. How bad a sign is that? Just when I should have been racing breathlessly to the end, I put it down.
I did finish the book, and I thought while reading the last three pages, that all would be revealed. But no. This was the most disappointing read I've had in a long time.