Sooley

 

Sooley – by John Grisham

John Grisham in many ways is the Steven Spielberg of novel writing. He’s the best known and most popular of his craft, but if we’re completely honest, a lot of his stuff isn’t nearly on par with some of his better works.  I’ve stated in other reviews that I’ve felt Grisham could do much better if he would spend a couple of years on each novel rather than churn out two or so per year. Many of his stories seemed forced, rushed and not completely thought through. Sadly, Sooley is such an example.

The good news is that this book is a bit of a change of pace since it’s not one of Grisham’s “legal” books. It’s a sports book, which seems to be the second area of focus for Grisham when he’s not writing about overworked lawyers and crooked law firms. The story here has potential. It succeeds in many areas and does hold the reader’s interest. The trouble is that Grisham seems to get lost along the way and doesn’t really know for sure where he wants to take his story. Therefore, he seems to force this story into a direction where it doesn’t really seem to be destined. It’s almost like Grisham was struggling with where to take his story, and since he had a deadline, he had to hurry up and come up with whatever he could think of at the time. That probably isn’t what really happened, but it certainly felt like that when I was reading it.

Samuel Sooleymon is a 17-year old resident of the war ravaged and hostile country of Sudan in Africa. The one thing he has going for him is that he’s pretty good at basketball. Is he great? Well, no, but when a local coach wants to put a local team together to go compete in the U.S., Samuel isn’t quite as good as he needs to be, but the coach “sees something” in this kid who is still growing like a weed and developing into what his coach things will be a tremendous ballplayer.  So Samuel gets the dream of a lifetime to go play in the U.S.

This story is at its best when we see this new foreign land through the eyes of “Sooley”. He’s amazed at the wealth of this country. He can’t believe that he can get a job and be paid the astronomical sum of $7.50 per hour to be a locker boy for a college football team. Sooley is a good kid, and his naivete doesn’t hinder his development as a basketball player.

Well, one area of this book that feels a bit forced, is we read about what happens to his family back home. Let’s just say that it’s far from pleasant, and his family find themselves destitute, homeless, wandering and starving due to rogue military types that are quite common. When Sooley becomes aware of this development, all he wants to do is go home, despite the fact that he’s living his dream in America. I really wish Grisham would have given this area of the book a bit more care, and perhaps not told such a grim “back” story. It’s not that such travails are uncommon, it just seemed as if we were reading two different books at times, and it seemed too much of a distraction.

Well, Sooley gets better at his craft and ends up playing for a University. Not a very well-known university, but someone with Sooley’s background and lack of development is just fine with his predicament.  Once Sooley starts playing at the university is where this story really seems to go off the rails. I won’t reveal any spoilers, but I was not really happy with where the story went, nor how things turned out. It’s also a bit exhausting to read intricate details of the basketball games that are played throughout the book. Watching a basketball game is fun, reading a few pages of details about what happens throughout the game – not so much. It got to the point where whenever it was time for “a game” in this book, I would just scan the pages, see which team won, and move on.

So good writing, a decent premise, but the story sadly ends up going south.  I’ve said this many times before in other reviews of Grisham’s work, and I’ve even already said this in this review: If Grisham could have had an extra six months, I think he would have had more time to come up with a much more satisfying ending than what we’re presented with here.  Oh well. It was a quick, easy read. I just wish it wasn’t so quickly written.

Betrayal – The Final Act of the Trump Show

 

Betrayal – The Final Act of the Trump Show – by Jonathan Karl

This book is a follow up to the author’s “Front Row at the Trump Show”.  My guess is that Jonathan Karl may not have intended to write a follow up, but with our idiotic Commander in Chief continuing to make blunder after blunder culminating with the outbreak of COVID 19, Mr. Karl probably realized that he couldn’t just stop his narrative where his first book ended.  Unfortunately, there was a lot more story to tell.

This book made me angry. It made me furious. I frequently had the urge the close the book and throw it against a wall. There were parts of the book that I honestly had to skim because I simply couldn’t relive the awfulness that Donald Trump and his ilk inflicted upon the entire country.  I’ve tried to be forgiving. I’ve tried to resign myself that maybe, just maybe, Trump wasn’t the worst U.S. President ever (James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson come to mind as contenders for that moniker), yet after reading this book and knowing that this dangerous man is still alive and might be plotting a comeback, I have to sadly resign myself to the fact that, yes, Donald Trump was, in fact, the worst president of the United States ever.

For those who might not know, Jonathan Karl was the White House correspondent for ABC News, so no one had a better inside scoop and “front row seat” at the Trump Show than this man. A front row seat is usually a good thing, but when the event your watching is a catastrophic train wreck, it can be a quite unnerving experience.  This book starts around Trump’s idiotic response to COVID and it ends shortly after his failed coup attempt that almost destroyed the nation.

How dangerous was Donald Trump?  Well, several months before the election, he claimed that if he lost in November, the only reason would be because the election would be stolen from him.  Yes, he actually said that. What’s sad is that many of his minions believed him – both when he said it, and after election day despite no credible evidence.  Then we read about him practicing for the first presidential debate against Joe Biden.  During “practice”, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie plays the part of Biden. During the practice, Trump gets so annoyed that he stops the practice and begins screaming and threatening Chris Christie. Why? Because Christie is doing his job and bringing up things that Joe Biden is likely to say during the debate. It’s really tragic how disengaged from reality Donald Trump proved to be time and time again.

There’s an awful lot here about his planned and failed insurrection after he loses the election, and it is incredibly scary how close he actually pulled the whole thing off.  Of course, he still has an awful lot of apologists out there who refuse to believe anything that doesn’t come from the mouth of Fox News.  Speaking of Fox News, another part of this book that I found scary was when the Biden administration finally arrived in the White House, they found that every single television (including multiple ones in the same rooms) were all turned to the Fox News channel.  Scary indeed.

Well, as I write this, Donald Trump is still alive, and we can hope that he spends the remainder of his life in the background, perhaps even prison. Let’s hope he stays out of the limelight. Let’s hope the multitudes that still voted for him in 2020 will somehow be enlightened. And let’s hope, and let’s pray, that Jonathan Karl never ever gets enough material to write a Volume 3.

Never

 

Never – by Ken Follett

For me, Ken Follett has sort of become the George Lucas of novel writing.  He’s written a few classics that stand above just about anything that has ever been written, but on close examination, a lot of his other works just ain’t that good.  Which sadly puts him in the category of “overrated”. This book is an example.  It did have potential.  Oh did it have potential. But Follett, as he’s been known to do, mucks up some great settings, ideas, and storytelling with elements of contriteness that makes one want to bang their head against the wall.

This is not a happy book. This is a downright depressing book. I don’t like to give spoilers in my reviews, but let’s just say that this modern-day World War III tale does not have a happy ending.  Why did Follett end this novel the way he did?  Is he trying to preach to the world? I didn’t feel that way, it just seemed like he was in a bad mood and decided to write about one of the gloomiest predicaments one can imagine.  Had the ending been different, I would have enjoyed this thing a tad better. A lot better actually.

The story: Like the first world war, an unfortunate chain of events that, sadly could happen, happens.  We find ourselves immersed in about four different subplots that will edge the world towards a global conflict. One in China, two in Africa, and one in the United States. The subplot that takes place in the United States is focused on the president (who else in a global war?) Eileen Green.  President Green’s character and situations are the second area of where Follett blows it.  She’s a very good commander in chief and my guess is most people would be happy with a person such as her in charge.  The problem is that in addition to focusing on Green’s presidential duties during a calamity, we read about her personal problems. I felt like I was reading about one of the Desperate Housewives of Orange County at times as opposed to the President of the United States.  Do we really need to read about her unpleasant relationship with her estranged teen-age daughter who is going through a rebellious stage? Or the fact that her husband blames his wife because she isn’t “spending enough time with her daughter”.  The leader of the free world??  We then have added to the mix a Vice President who’s having an affair with a 16-year-old, ridiculous partisan bickering, and President Green fantasizing about having sex with one of her cabinet members. Follett is known for being a feminist author, but I felt the portrayal of this woman president highly degrading, and I don’t think that if the character was a man, that the author would have treated this character the same way.

There are other elements of this behavior in some of our other subplots. In the country of Chad in Africa where other misgivings occur, we meet a capable 30-something CIA agent named Tamera who could probably carry an entire novel by herself. She’s damn good, but we really could do without having to endure reading about her romantic crush, who is one of her counterparts from another country. Sorry, but we don’t need to read two pages of Tamara picking out an outfit for a date.  This is supposed to be a serious novel about a world war for criminy sakes.  Follett could have taken a lesson or two from someone like a Tom Clancy.

I can handle all of the ridiculous romantic trivialities as these have almost become a given with Follett novels. What I can’t handle is books the end up being this futile and depressing. Maybe I’m getting too old, but life is too short (did you catch the irony?) to waste on reading such books.  I really wish I could have had a hand in editing this book. I could have made a few changes and made it much better.  In fact, just about anybody could have made this book better.  Sorry Mr. Follett, but you’re now in my “overrated” club.