The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

8/10

I just finished this book last night. I enjoyed it. I'd seen the Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington movie many years ago but only remembered bits and pieces from it. Looking back, I guess I really only remember Julia Roberts running away from bad guys a lot and the car bomb part.

The plot in this one was really good and the pace of it was really well done. It was pretty suspenseful throughout. It was what one would call a "page-turner." Except it took me forever to read because for some reason I fall asleep almost instantly now when I read at night. Probably because I'm way old.

Seems like the main flaw of the book is the huge overreaction by the bad guy Mattiece to try and knock off the Julia Roberts character after she wrote the brief that no one took seriously for one second. Obviously they should have just let it go and done nothing since no one was taking the brief seriously. But then they go on a killing rampage to draw tons of attention to it. Dumb criminals.

Here is my rankings of John Grisham books that I have read:

1. The Pelican Brief
2. The Client

It's Not About the Bunny It's About the Lamb by Ron Millburn

10/10

This book was so lame. Bo-ring. Just kidding. My Dad wrote it and he is the only person who reads this blog so I have to say that it was good. He gave it to me for my birthday a few weeks back and I quickly read it on the toilet in homage to him, the greatest toilet reader of our generation.

It really is good though and is a very solid doctrinal review of the atonement with some very good insights. It was fun for me to read because I've been reading this kind of stuff from him for years on his blog and it was nice to see his scriptural knowledge and storytelling on display in a published booklet. I have lots of favorite parts, such as the classic family home evening story I've heard told a number of times, the great story about David Stone which is a simple classroom lesson which brings to life how personal the Savior's atonement really is, or the informative story about the back of the statue at Winter Quarters and the Hebrew meaning of the atonement being "to cover."

A lot here to ponder. And I'm thankful for having a Dad who is such a good gospel teacher and proud of him for getting this published.