Hello,
I love book clubs because many times they cause me to stretch my boundaries. Many times I've read books that I would have never picked up if it wasn't in a book club. Due to crazy things and the constant change of life, I haven't attended a book club in a few years. Tonight I'm going back to a book club.
Unfortunately the book chosen for tonight's book club is John Grisham's "The Confession". I've always kind have been neutral on John Grisham. I loved his first book "The Firm". However his latest book sucks- there's no other way to put it. This book is about the death penalty in general and how it's working in Texas specifically.
The characters are so simplistic. The minister, Keith Schroeder, is just a good, good guy. The bad guy, Travis Boyette, is a really bad guy. They are stock characters, they stick to what their characters should be like. Schroeder is all good, the only way Grisham could have made it more obvious is to put a halo above. On the other hand Boyette is bad, bad, bad and without a redeeming characteristic. He lies, he cheats, he rapes, he steals and just about anything else bad that he can do. These characters are all or nothing, there's no ambiguity with them.
Nine years ago Travis Boyette killed cheerleader Nicole Yarber. He was never charged with the crime, in fact he was never even a suspect. Due to false testimony by a dishonest person the almost saintly Donte Drumm was arrested for Yarber's death. Now 9 years later Drumm's execution date in Texas is coming quickly and Boyette arrives in Topeka, Kansas. That's where minister Schroeder is and Boyette wants to unload his feelings of guilt to him. He claims to be close to death and is trying to clear his conscience. Even when he seemingly is being slightly noble, he's doing it more for attention and money than true feeling.
According to Grisham's book Texas is full of legislators that love the death penalty. They'll do everything in their power to ensure that death row inmates are killed quickly. They close their doors at 5:00pm to ensure no last minute appeals, they ignore evidence, they coerce confessions out of suspects. Are you getting how simplistic and one sided this book is? Again the bad guys are really bad. Not only that but they are short-sighted and incompetent
Grisham is on the Board of Directors for the Innocence Project in New York. They are an organization against the death penalty. The Innocence Project also recently received a mention on "The Good Wife". It seems Grisham is virulently opposed to the death penalty. This book is his platform to condemn and eventually get rid of it completely. Too bad this is such a terrible book, he won't convince anyone to agree with him with this book.
His bias shows clearly in this book though. This is one of the most one sided, biased pieces of fiction I've ever read. I don't have an opinion one way or another about the death penalty. I can see both sides and agree with points from both sides. Grisham's book did nothing to change my mind, although it's clear he wants this book to convince people to end the death penalty. Even in the corrupt and blood thirsty state of Texas.
If you are looking for an intelligent discussion about the death penalty, you need to look somewhere else. I just can't believe how bad this book truly is.
This is the song my iPod chose for me randomly this morning when I started my workout. This is one of Billy Idol's better songs although relatively people are familiar with it:
As I was searching youtube.com I realized there have been a few great songs that mention Romeo. Here's a couple of other Romeo classics. This is Dire Straits "Romeo and Juliet", this is an unintentionally funny video.
The following performance shows why white boys shouldn't dance, actually shouldn't attempt to dance. However this is a great song. Steve Forbert's "Romeo's Tune":
themusicaddict
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