This is the first John Grisham book I have ever read, which is somewhat surprising since I’ve seen many movies based on this author’s work. I chose to read this because I am a fan of the film and I wanted something “light” or just less dense. I thought a thriller-type story would fit what I was in the mood for. My parents already owned this book so it was easy enough to borrow for a week.

If you are not familiar with the story, it begins with a young hot shot getting offers from multiple law firms and trying to figure out where best to make his career. Being offered a lucrative deal by a small exclusive firm in Memphis, Tennessee the young Mitch McDeere and his wife Abby begin an ambitious new chapter. As one might guess from the title, there is more to this firm than Mitch initially realizes.

Typically with movie adaptions of books, I avoid the movie until I have read the novel it’s based on. That was not possible in this case since I was fairly young when I first saw the Tom Cruise adaption of this story, and have seen it many times since. Being so familiar with the movie made it difficult not to compare the two while reading the book. While there wasn’t a huge divergence between the two versions, there was enough difference that I am able to appreciate both the movie and novel as separate works.

I am very familiar with the movie; I think I preferred the book. While I will not go into spoilers, I just found the book version more believable, and enjoyed the additional details provided in the written version. As someone that likes the law, I found both the book and the movie entertaining in their own way. After reading this I will definitely pick up another Grisham novel in the future. It’s good to know that even if I’ve seen one of the many movies based off his works I can still appreciate and separately enjoy his novels.