Rating: 
Summary: Classic John Grisham
Review: From the beginnings of two very different stories, a congressman about to run for president with the help of the CIA, and a federal prison in Florida where three disgraced judges hold court, John Grisham is able to weave an interesting and captivating story. Grisham draws the storylines closer and closer as the master storyteller he is. When they finally combine to the conclusion, the story is never dull. More engrossing and better flow than previous novels (The Chamber, The Street Lawyer). Still not the masterpiece of The Firm. A story made all the more interesting for its plausibility (almost). Set in the world of politics we can now watch unfold in national primaries. Well done and worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing overall
Review: I usually like Mr Grisham,but this book was a disappointment. The plot was not as interesting as usual; and the characters were all unlikeable. I did not find it humorous. As usual, he is a literate writer; but this book was not entertaining or enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Another empty Grisham Book
Review: I loved reading The Firm, it was a great book. I decided to read The Partner shortly after the firm. I was so angry with the way the book turned out that I swore I would never read another Grisham book again! Unfortunately, I forgot about that promise and read The Breathren.I do enjoy Grisham's style of writing and the way he describes the characters, events, places, etc. But I never developed any sense of who I should like in this book. Should I like Aaron Lake? Should I like Travis? Should I feel for the judges? I never developed an affinity with any of these characters. So, basically I found this to be a book that had characters I couldn't identify with, a plot that was very thin, none of the usual interesting legal manuevering, and a boring ending. I hope that Grisham will stop cranking out these boring books and put some time into one of them. Develop the characters. Come up with a believable plot that keeps us on the edge of our seat (like The Firm). Make the ending interesting, entertaining, and fun! Oh well.. I think I've said enough already.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't do it for me.......
Review: Unlike most of Grisham's earlier efforts, I found this one plodding at best. Never mind the hero, I couldn't even figure out who the protaginist was.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldnt put it down!
Review: Of all Grisham's books, this one is definately the best! It also has a perfect story for a Hollywood movie. Watch for it in you local theaters soon!
Rating:
Summary: Loved it as usual...BUT
Review: Okay, after just finishing John Grisham's 11th novel, I must say I'm a little dismayed. Sure I loved it, as I have all his books (except the Testament). But I'm just left feeling empty (in a manner of speaking). I mean the PARTNER had an incredible ending, a great plot and great characters. The Firm, A Time to Kill, The Client, etc.. all had protagonists who you liked a lot and wanted to root for. Yet the Brethren didn't have one main character - one character who you could root for. Their was no standard "good guy". The story was interesting, yet there was no suspense. I read it just as fast as his other books, all page turners. I was just left feeling there should have been MORE. There was no drop the book shock ending that you got from The Partner.
Rating: 
Summary: The Brethren
Review: "The Brethren" by John Grisham (New York: Doubleday, 2000, 366 pages). Book Review by Harvey S. Karten Actors, politicians, celebrities, household names of all sorts put their pants on one leg at a time just like you and me. Despite the shades that hide their identities from prying eyes and the stretch limos that conceal their presence along the thoroughfares, people in the public eye have all the virtues and vices of the rest of us human beings. Because their options are great, they tend to succumb to the latter more readily than the rest of us as well. If you doubt this, just take a look at Jacqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls." An important political figure who represented my district in Congress some time ago--a millionaire liberal who did quite a bit of good in funneling money to poor precincts within his jurisdiction--mixed himself up in a scam that cost him his job. This middle-aged, self-made fellow who made a fortune in real estate had a penchant for 15-year-old boys from minority neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. and when he was found out--an event so inevitable that he must have been self- destructive even to think of pursuing this hobby--he lost his job and was prosecuted. John Grisham's eleventh novel deals with a similar sort of man, albeit incidentally, focusing on three former judges being held in a federal jail--one of those country club establishments with unarmed guards and without barbed wire. They were not fond of their incarceration but to their even greater detriment, these three felonious men from California, Texas and Mississippi were forced to give up their jobs as judges. Grisham is most interested in the scam they perpetrate while in the penal institution--three men known as The Brethren who haunt the jailhouse law library, settle quarrels of the prisoners in amusing, mock-courtroom trials, and work for pennies an hour on the grounds of the institution. This time around, Grisham takes a breather from his usual ponderous themes. There are no lying tobacco executives for the common man to take on nor does the lawyer-turned- writer go for the jugular of the big, bad insurance companies who do what they can to avoid paying out big claims. While "The Brethren" involves people as high up in office as the head of the CIA and a presidential candidate who is under the director's thumb and who appears to be a shoo-in, the title characters are more like keystone cops or, at best, the types who might stroll into a courtroom to cries of "Here comes da judge." "The Brethren" is a fun novel, inevitably to be made into a movie that may or may not emphasize its comic overtones. Written in Grisham's usual prosaic, occasional clunky style, it is nonetheless the sort of thriller which can easily be a one- day read. Though lacking in nail-biting suspense, the book is a short 355 pages, big print, which compared to its predecessors seems like a dumbed-down version of Grisham's best work, "The Firm." Finn Yarber, Hatlee Beech and Joe Roy Spicer are three ex- judges whose scam involves reading a particular gay magazine and placing ads in the back pages of the sort "guy wants to meet guy for dinner, good talk, and then-some." Calculating which ads were placed by men with money who might be easy fish for their larcenous hooks, they engage in correspondence with the lonely and unlucky individuals, using a drunken, small-town lawyer named Trumble to visit them daily to organize the mails. After receiving correspondence from a rich gay man sufficient to expose him to his wife and community, they blackmail the poor sap in return for their silence. What they do not count on is that one of their buyers would be Aaron Lake, a congressman who would later run a spectacular presidential campaign. Lake is handpicked by CIA head Maynard, who manipulates the politician into a one- issue crusade to double the defense budget and thereby enhance the prestige of the CIA. When executives and workers in the defense industries get the message, Lake receives more campaign funds than any previous candidate had ever secured. To insure the surprised and elated Lake his ultimate victory, the CIA head even plans to drum up a little war just before election day so that Lake would be looked upon as the messiah and swept into the White House. There's just one thing. The Brethren can upset the candidate's plans more readily than they could even had they been Supreme Court justices striking down one executive order after another. John Grisham, Esq., who surrendered a career in a field roundly disliked by a majority of Americans in return for one that is generally underpaid, makes best-seller lists with anything sporting his name on the author pages. This vastly popular writer whose latest book is destined for the silver screen, does not show a particular inside knowledge of politics. His discussion of CIA machinations involves deliberations that anyone with half an imagination could drum up. His prose is anything but literary. Yet there's something about the man's easygoing style that keeps us riveted. Perhaps it's the way he gets us to root for the bad guys--not for the big CIA honcho and the jingoistic presidential candidate, but rather for the guys who become buddy-buddy in their jail cells scheming like playful adolescents to do in some lonely souls. The usual politics of international banking gets its dramatization, the typical machinations of influential men their exposition. "The Brethren" comes across as mostly as a transitional, comic piece between Grisham's flogging of big business and perhaps his next work--which might be a baring of fangs against, oh, say organized medicine.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely a disappointment
Review: For me this was the most disappointing Grisham novel yet. Unlike some of his more polished stories, Brethren lacked the essentials of a good novel. Certainly nowhere near the underlying psychological tension of The Firm, for example. Character development was weak, the plot lines were strained and the hypothesis completely unbelievable. The ending failed to bring any sort of critical denouement to the storylines and seemed as if it was thrown together because the author ran out of typewriter ribbon. It may sell a lot of copies but I'd only recommend purchasing this if you are the ultimate diehard Grisham fan...or if you just want to read a sodapop novel, have it taste good and then burp, it's gone.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Grisham
Review: The Brethren is a disappointing followup to Grisham's previous works. The plot is contrived and implausible. There is little character development. Indeed, there are no likeable characters or even characters with which the reader can identify. Since this is a presidential election year, it seems Grisham stretched to come up with a topical plot. It didn't work.
Rating:
Summary: The Brethren
Review: This was most UN-Grisham, but good. I liked the fact that it didn't STRESS me out! It isn't a thriller as most all his previous books have been, but the plot was intriguing and quite "light-hearted" as Grisham books go. I hope he continues along this same vein.
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