The Associate

Grisham's fan base is so secure he can get away with anything,

He gives evidence in his recent works that he doesn't really care anymore!

Fifty pages into the Associate, I knew that I did not want to follow wherever he was going to take an absurd plot while revisiting elements from previous works and I no longer wanted to "associate" myself with his work in any respect.

Is this too extreme? Maybe, but, I thought I would check with the critics to see if I had missed something. They were very careful to recognize his narrative abilities, professional skills and great success before they dismembered him. He deserves it.

He has been in decline for years, forget about G, get a life, move on.

This book deserves a zero for effort; previous show more critical eras would have dismissed it as "old wine in new bottles" or, worse, a "potboiler". show less

This is another taut, legal drama from former lawyer John Grisham. The plot involves recent Yale Law School graduate Kyle McAvoy, who has been spurning offers from big law firms so he can do legal aid work for migrant workers. Unfortunately, a man named Bennie Wright wants to steal secrets from one of those big firms, and knows something in McAvoy’s past that will kill any career McAvoy has in mind. Wright thus is able to “persuade” McAvoy to join this firm and help him obtain classified military information, which the firm has because of a monumental suit it is litigating.

The plot is a little strained; one wonders why someone as bright and altruistic as the hero doesn’t seek the help of a good criminal lawyer, the Justice show more Department, and the FBI on page 50 rather than on page 300, but it wouldn’t be much of a story if he did. Nonetheless, the book is worth reading to get a flavor (if a bit exaggerated) of the trials and tribulations of young associates in big law firms. Having once been one myself (i.e., a young associate in a big firm in Chicago), I could empathize with Kyle as he struggled with the pressure and temptations of life in the fast lane.

Evaluation: Grisham never lets the narrative stall, and although it is not as breathtakingly paced as The Da Vinci Code, this one will keep your attention.

(JAB) show less

I hovered between two and three stars on this. I love Grisham's writing style, but I have to say, the ending of this made me throw the damn book. Let me rephrase that, the lack of an ending, made me throw the book.

The first two thirds of the book had me really excited. Here was a well-crafted story, perhaps the protagonist was a bit two-dimensional but no matter, he was interesting sometimes, and the pace was maintained throughout. Then, the last few chapters just ruined the whole thing. The lead up to this great confrontation, this do or die moment was fast and exciting and then...WTF? He gets away? Then what? Well, we don't know because the protagonist walks off into the darkness, where the baddie could be for all we know because he show more just poofed off the face of the earth according to the FBI.

Ugh. I enjoy John Grisham's books, but this one left me feeling kind of cheated. I hope the next I Grisham book I read doesn't have the ending ripped out of it. show less

Typical Grisham-which means an interesting story if a reader suspended disbelief and rolls with it. Much like his other novels, in the Associate, our hero is a super smart young adult who has all the potential in the world, but a whiff of a sex scandal threatens it all (even though our hero is, of course, blameless).

The ending is happy and because of the excellent writing, I liked our hero, making me a happy reader, too.

Poor. It's been a long time since Grisham managed to tell a gripping story, and he hasn't succeeded this time either. There are touches of the old spark, and the setting is reminiscent of his big thrillers, but the plot is lacking in believability, the characters clunky, and it collapses into a dismally weak ending.

Kyle McAvery is a typical yuppy lawyer, just out of Yale and ready to take up his big job, with his big law firm. One day he gets a bit of a shock to find some local characters have rooted about in his life, and found a video that he thought had never been made. They don't want money, they want documents, specifically from his new big law firm. There follows a large chunk of Kyle attempting to be sneaky in non-clever ways, show more and a few meetings with his blackmailers, and a bit about how hard corporate law is, and then it ends.

I think it's supposed to be another version of hate piled on for corporate law firms, but it all comes across a bit weak. Especially the ending, which doesn't resolve any of the questions raised during the book. There is none of the courtroom fire and drama, which a 'law story' really needs. Granted this may be slightly more true to life, but it's always a notable lack when Grisham doesn't include any. This read more like a bad thriller, with inept law agents and a do-it-yourself hero. There's a brief love interest, the old kindly manager, the scary manager etc, but none of them have any personality. I never really connected to Kyle, and didn't care whether he escaped, got caught or crashed and burned.

It's readable, Grisham can still write engaging sentences, but as a book it's just not worth the effort. show less

I am a John Grisham fan. I like his writing style. It's comfortable. I've pretty much enjoyed all of his books that I've read.

This is my least favorite thus far. I couldn't get on board with the lead character. (And John Grisham has had morally ambiguous leads before, and has been successful.) This lead... I had NO idea what the angle on his predicament was supposed to be. He's being blackmailed because of potential rape from his past? You're a lawyer, man. Face the accuser and those past actions, exactly like your lawyer dad does the second he finds out. So I couldn't even understand how the story got going, much less how I was supposed to root for him against... well, nothing. It's a book with a lot of "what do I do?" and not a lot show more of doing. And to top all of that off, there's absolutely no resolution in the end. Books can only end in mystery only if they've been exciting the entire time.

The last two Grisham books I read made me kind of dislike the lead character, but ultimately left me in a musing state. Twas nothing quite this bad and I didn't repeatedly yell, "WHY?!" while reading. show less

Like all Grisham thrillers, this is a good page-turner and won't last long on your bedside table. But this one comes disappointingly short compared to his other novels. The characters lack depth, the story is rather straightforward, and the conclusion is entirely, almost depressingly expected. The book is replete with the usual law-firm clichés : ginormous salaries, abusive billing, staggering work hours... so much that the actual intrigue almost becomes a side story at times. Yawn.