Rating: 
Summary: Satiable Hunger
Review: Sometimes all you need is something to tide you over. Dinner is in an hour but your stomach is rumbling away so you nibble on a cookie, chow on a candy bar, suck on a ring-pop. The food might not be the greatest and a couple hours later you've probably forgotten you had it. But it did the trick. It took care of your hunger for the moment.James Patterson and Andrew Cross's new book Jester is little more than the bag of nuts you get on an airplane to keep you going until your next layover or until you reach your destination. You wish your flight had a meal served on it, but are happy to at least have the snack. Jester is an exciting tale of love, wars against royalty and quests for religious relics. While the tale briefly begins in present time, the true story begins in 1050 A.D. when Hugh De Luc watches people head off on crusades. He holds himself back from partaking in the religious battles at first, but when a second opportunity arouses, he is unable to keep himself from going to war. He leaves his wife Sophie at home and fights for the freedom he feels is right. When Hugh returns home he finds that his decision to join the crusades has affected his whole villages and his wife, who has been taken captive. Going on about the plot might actually make the book seem less appealing and more dime-store-romance-novel-ish... But essentially that's what it is, with only a fraction of the smut. Patterson and Cross do a very good job of writing an entertaining story that keeps you turnings the pages. With no less than 153 chapters in only 452 pages, Jester is broken up into bite-size chunks easily accessible to anyone. The book is flawed: while the book begins in the present, we never return to the beginning characters but instead end still in the time of the crusades; the plot is much too predictable. When you want a nice easy read though, perhaps on a long flight where you just want to be distracted from the crying babies behind you and the coughing passenger besides you until your next layover or until you reach your destination, open the Jester. You might not remember much about the book when you're finished, but you will enjoy the read.
Rating: 
Summary: One word "Phenomenal"
Review: I would like to be frank and honest, I really love Patterson. Not because of his writing, it because he knows how to capture the imagination. I think its great that Patterson went a different direct than his normal genre of writing. Among friends, when discussing Patterson novels, we have a saying of normal Patterson, which is mostly detective/suspense or weird Patterson, which is out of the norm for us. This book is out of the norm. I feel in this book that he's just a great storyteller. Even though, I feel that some of the slang and words used weren't authentic of the time era. I imagined someone sitting down in front of an audience telling a story through his owns words. The story beings with archaeologists finding a relic from the past and with this relic a historical fictional story unfolds. The time era was in 1096 with the main character Hugh de Luc feels he must fight for freedom of his people. He leaves his wife behind and his quest begins. Through out the book Hugh is faced with pain staking realizations and no matter what had happened he had a lot of passion and heart. He had true beliefs in the goodness of things even though horrible things had happened to him. He continues to press on and the strange thing was that the thought of giving up never crossed his mind. Even though, there were many people around him giving much doubt, he still believed!! I felt Patterson (with some help of course) captured the true essence of that. Now, if an author can do that he is a great writer within his own class!!
Rating: 
Summary: Fairly entertaining for light, non-critical reading
Review: 2 ½ stars This novel is light reading for fans of medieval history. It is a fairly interesting read, by and large, but contains little of substance or historical accuracy. This tale of a simple innkeeper turned crusader turned court jester and then leader of a peasant army goes very fast and I'd be surprised if it was not turned into a movie; indeed, if it had already been set to film, it would star Erol Flynn. There is some fairly OK romance, some details on the crusades and 11th century French feudalism and some medieval swordplay and battles, but nothing extensive. Good triumphs over evil, fairly predictably. The perspective of life as a court jester is a new one, not quite Robin Hood, but definitely not Arthur Pendragon either. The evil doings in this book by the knights and nobility are pretty atrocious (really faint-hearted readers may be offended by the images of violence, torture and sex, which, if they were in a movie, would get an "Unrated" rating). I question whether 11th century lords really exercised such complete power over life or liberty of their serfs. The French feudalism described herein seems much more akin to Japanese feudalism and I doubt medieval European aristocracy would treat the lives of their subjects/tax base so casually. I have two items of significant criticism with this light but fairly entertaining novel, aside from its cursory nature (it could have stood an extra 100 pages of details and description). First is the whole premise that the duke would know of the whereabouts of the relic and know to track it back to Hugh. Indeed, if he knew it was in Hugh's possession, why did his marauders commit outrages on other towns and slay the several knights in those small hamlets? Perhaps they were looking for other relics? The book is not clear on this point. There are several moderately clever plot twists relating to this relic, though, but an obvious, not-so-clever "twist" about the main love interest. The second fault I had was the fact that its authors chose to make every fourth page or so the start of a new chapter. Out of the 467 pages of this novel (perhaps 10-20 of which are title pages or blank), its authors have managed to squeeze out ONE HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT (148) chapters. That's right, folks, each chapter averages only three pages. This makes light reading go by even quicker and doubtlessly assisted its authors in churning out more pages more quickly (and more profitably), but before long it gets a bit old to be switching chapters so fast. If you have a full day of traveling with stopovers at several different airports, I bet the average person could finish this book before arriving at his or her destination; I'm a fairly quick reader and I finished it in less than five hours. I find it pretty amusing that the "spotlight" reviewer referred to this book as a "monster" of a novel - it's nowhere close to War and Peace, a James Clavell novel or even a Tom Clancy book in length, much less in complexity. It's definitely more than a magazine article, but probably a faster and easier read than any novel the typical high school student has read for English class; in fact, it would not surprise me to find that most of the five-star reviewers are either in their first several years of, or not yet attending, high school. Also, contrary to what the "spotlight" reviewer states, the novel is set at the end of the 11th century, not the 14th and the local nobles, not the king, were the tyrannical parties. Overall, it's moderately entertaining, but few people will be satisfied if they shelled out the extra dough and bought the hardcover version rather than the much cheaper paperback. This book is definitely more Red Heat (Schwarzenegger and Belushi) than Doctor Zhivago, and more Xena than Lord of the Rings.
Rating:
Summary: Non Stop Pulse Pounding Action!
Review: This book is one of those books that you can't wait to read every day! The idea behind the story is outstanding. I would fully recommend The Jester to anyone who wanted a good action/thriller.
Rating:
Summary: James knows how to write
Review: If you expect in this book a thriller like The Da Vinci Code you will be very disappointed. You have to read this book like a novel, or better like a love story which doesn't have anything to do with reality. I'm pretty sure that JP didn't make any investigation to write this book. He just wrote a novel to entertain his readers and he made it quite good. Don't expect to learn something out of this book, just sit down, read and enjoy the book. It's worth every word in it
Rating: 
Summary: Medieval Skit
Review: I had never read anything before by James Patterson...and based on this book, I never will again! Perhaps his contemporary novels don't grate on the nerves quite so jarringly? I had picked this book up because I'm interested in the Crusades era, and thought that this one sounded interesting from the description and the glowing reviews. What a disappointment. The story is set during the Crusades, but the characters act and speak in contemporary ways. The medieval setting is as shallow and unbelievable as a painted backdrop for a high school skit. The plot barrels along at breakneck speed, so I suppose if you want something quick and diverting to read on an airplane, this might be adequate. However, if you want a fascinating book that immerses you in medieval times with realistic characters...this isn't it.
Rating:
Summary: Great and Original!!!!!
Review: Although this is off Patterson's usual beaten path, it is a wonderful read!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Midieval Mythology
Review: 'The Jester' tells the story of a inn keeper turned crusader that finds he doesn't have the taste for the Crusades and leaves the Holy Land for home. When he returns to France, he discovers the Inn he and his wife, Sophie, had built has been burnt to the ground. Worse, he discovers that his wife has been carried away by rebellious knights. Seeking revenge, Hugh (the inn keeper) sets off in a fury weilding only a staff he picked up during the crusades. A fair lady attendant of the wife of a local baron rescues him from trouble and sets him up with the pretext of the role of a Jester to further his plot...
James Patterson teams up with Andrew Gross to bring us this novel. Readers of Patterson's other works, such as the Alex Cross series, will be familiar with the usual plot twists and short chapters that make his books page turners. However, although this book is set in the eleventh century, and the bibliography of sources the authors used suggests they did they research, it doesn't have the ring of historical accuracy. The story seems to have been modernized for current tastes, with the most notable example being the language.
Overall, the book is enjoyable. The plot is not entirely complex, and in a few points, somewhat predictable. My biggest gripe is that the authors would have us believe Hugh would be surprised to find that his wife was missing and his inn burnt down after the book starts with a scene of Knights doing just that in Hugh's presence when others had left for a "people's crusade." The language is frequently coarse, and there are some highly explicit sexual descriptions and violent encounters. I wouldn't recommend this novel for young readers, but older readers looking for a quick read should enjoy this.
Rating:
Summary: Fiction, yes. Historical? Only as a backdrop.
Review: I picked up this story hoping for historical fiction, that is, insight into another era using a storyline as a tool to stir interest.
What I found was --- blah. Predictable storyline, no character development, an egocentric "hero," 7th grade bathroom humor lacking any subtlety, and no more insight into history than one gathers as general knowledge through movies.
Where is the author that can write a true historical fiction on the middle ages, with the same depth and insight as found with Pearl S Buck and China? Please tell me!
However, if you're looking for a lot of brutal violence, template romance and tiresome "sex" jokes, and only care to spend 2 minutes per chapter, here is your book!
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous historical fiction.
Review: This was my first James Patterson book and I loved it! Impossible to put down, Jester torments you with it's realistic portrayal of life in medeival times and the Crusades. I recommend this book to everyone who likes historical fiction. I guess some people did not realize that this is not strictly a murder mystery like Patterson books seem to be, but it is much more interesting than that! This book has war, violence, romance, and beauty. It is a poignant and epic classic.
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