Kim's Review : Everyone Worth Knowing

Picked this one up because I found the "Devil Wears Prada" good for a light read when traveling.

The cover of Everyone Worth Knowing touted the fact that is was written by the same author in almost the same font size as the title.

That should have warned me : Be wary when someone is trying too hard.

The theme here is vaguely similar to the original bestseller, Bette the main protagonist is sick of her job in banking, her boss and his daily inspirational emails with quotations. One day she quits her job in disgust and then spends the next couple of weeks vegetating in her house.

Her well known columnist uncle, Will uses his connections to get her a job at an up and coming boutique PR firm where partying hard is part of her job.

The rest of the book is a constant whine of how terrible Bette's life is and how she isn't happy with what she is doing but still keeps doing it anyway.

This book has none of the humor of the first, or something enlightening like a window into the fashion magazine industry that the first book provided.

This book just talks about the parties the PR folks attend where they drink, do drugs and have random hookups with barely any insight into the inner workings of the PR industry.

This book is a combination of gossip pages, Harlequin romances (which Bette incidentally favours and even has monthly book club meetings to discuss them) and poor me whining.

The book is barely passable as chicklit. Guys don't even bother starting to read it.

Rating: 0.5/5

Also published on desicritics.org

     

Kim's Review : The Appeal

The latest bestseller from John Grisham after - The Innocent Man.

Given that the Innocent Man was a work of non-fiction, makes this book all the more frightening. Grisham himself was very excited about his first real legal thriller in years.

In this book (I wouldn't call it a novel) Grisham exposes the nexus between big business, politics and the law. While these have always been recurring themes in his books, this time in "The Appeal" it is the sole focus of the book.

The book starts with a chemical and environmental pollution case in small town Bowmore, Mississippi, now nicknamed Cancer County, where Krane Chemical is the accused and Jeanette Baker the plaintiff.

Jeanette has lost both her husband and son to cancer. This makes hers the strongest case to start with for her lawyers - Wes and Mary Payton. There are plenty of mass tort specialists and ambulance chasers waiting in the wings for the decision on this case, so they can all get themselves a piece of the pie (30% to the lawyers) while the Paytons themselves are over 400,000$ in debt by virtue of working and following up on this case (to the exclusion of all others).

The jury orders damages of 41 million dollars to be paid to Jeanette and here is where the plot actually takes off.

It is an intriguing ride that Grisham takes us on and is an excellent medium to learn how the Supreme Courts in the US work. Most states choose their Supreme Court justices by election, which leaves plenty of room for interested parties to skew the process. How that happens, is the meat of this book.

The ending may not please a lot of readers, but it is extremely realistic and I admire Grisham for leaving it there rather than neatly tying things up.

The book is extremely interesting and educating on the political and legal intrigue that takes place behind these elections. While this may be a work of fiction, it could very well become reality, any time in the near future and that is what is so scary about this book.

Also published on desicritics.org

Kim's Review : A Prisoner of Birth

Lord Jeffrey Archer is back with a bang! Doing what he does best. Writing fiction with revenge and justice as the major themes of his novel.


I have not been as lucky as IdeaSmith as to meet this Lord in person. But I'm sure it would be an amazing experience just to hear him speak on any topic on this earth. He has an astounding insight on what seems to be almost everything.


Lord Archer has proven yet again why he is one of the leading best selling authors of this generation.


The similarities to Dumas's Count of Monte Cristo are clearly evident in this tale and even the main protagonist keeps referring to the book. But Archer gives this tale a modern twist and spices it up with intimate knowledge of the details that he gathered during his 2 year tryst in Her Majesty's prisons.


The tempo of the novel keeps building up and its quite un-put-down-able (not sure if that is a word, but it describes this story aptly) To use a real word, this is a page turner. Definitely not bed time reading unless you plan to stay up all night until you are done.


This is a book that every mystery/crime fan should buy and read and re-read (its a book that may need to be read twice as new angles are discovered which have a different significance on past conversations and situations)


I'm now waiting for Paths of Glory which he is due to release in March of next year.





Also published on desicritics.org