What readers think of A Painted House, plus links to write your own review.

I'm a teenager that lives in canada and i HATE reading with a passion...my mom read A Painted House and told me how good it was...i took he word for it and read it myself...and believe it or not, i couldn't find enough time in the day to read the book to find out what was going to happen next. Then shopping around i came acroos his book The Testament...i thought it sounded good so i bought it...i'm reading it now and i love it...i finally read...besides actually reading, for fun, its building my vocabulary and thats wonderful...especially for my english teacher...lol...whether you like too read or not i would STRONGLY recommend John Grishom's books...they're awesome and full of surprises and adventure!...i was thrilled when i saw A Painted House on tv for the hallmark hall of fame...it was a good movie even thought i kno i would have liked it better if they hadn't cut anything out, and did everything word for word from the book... the characters were cool(in the book) and i loved the murder...it gets you even more hooked to the book...ok..now i'm just going on..so take my word and read the book!!!!

Out of the many Grisham books I have read (The Runaway Jury, The Partner, The Testament, and The Client) This is one book that I can really relate to. Not growing up on a farm but having to keep secrets, Family traditions, betrayals, Hormones. If you read one book of Grishams you should read this.

I have loved every one of J.Grisham's books; A Painted House is by far his best. I am an audio book lover and have listened to A Painted House so often, that I ordered another one just in case this one wore out. My eldest son is also a John Grisham book lover and we compare notes and talk about his
books many times over. A Painted House as seen through the eyes of a 7 year old is warm, and
exciting and intense at times. The descriptive style of John Grisham had me making "bisquits" each
time I listened to it. I absolutely loved it.

One of the best books I've ever read. I'm not an avid reader by any means, but finished this book in a day and a half. The only thing that dissapointed me about this book was when I turned the last page. I'm probably going to have to read it again. This time much slower. - Scott

LUM

I read the book and loved every paragraph. I lived in Lepanto Arkansas for many years of my childhood. I am 50 years old now and have been away from Lepanto and from the cotton farm that I grew up on, but the memories still linger. As I read this book, those memories flooded over me and reminded me of the abject poverty that I knew as a child. It also reminded me of wonderful times spent with my family. We worked in the fields and my grandmother cooked for the whole family and the farm hands as well. We had Mexicans who came to chop cotton in the spring and stayed on til fall to help pick. I was very small when I started working in the field, but before I started working, I went to the field everyday and walked along with the uncles,aunts and cousins who were there working. My values were developed in those very fields.

I watched the movie "A Painted House" and loved it as well. John Grisham really knows how to express the true flavor of the south in everything he does. I just wish there had not been so many commercials interrupting the movie. It was very distracting to have so many long commercials, but the true colors of John Grisham's south shown through.

Thanks, John Grisham, for providing a wonderful tale, so poignant, and vital.

I live in Lepanto, Arkansas where the majority of the made for T.V. movie was filmed. I wanted to read the book before the movie came out and I have to say that if the movie is half as good as the book it will be a definite success. I was drawn to the book simply from the fact that the movie was filmed here in my hometown but the fact the the character "Luke Chandler" and his family were Cardinal fans absolutely made me have to read the book. The only thing that was different from me as a child and "Luke" was the fact that he grew up listening to Harry Carey and I grew up listening to Jack Buck. Again I live right off of Highway 135 just south of where "Luke Chandler" lived the first seven years of his life and now I have a daughter that is the same age of seven and not only do we relate talking about the St. Louis Cardinals day after day but now I can relate to her that there was once a family years before us that used to do the same thing that we do every day. Playing pitch, talking about the Cardinals, and watching the cotton come and go every year.
Thanks,
Jay Truelove
Lepanto, Arkansas

I'm only fourteen years old and I love it. I think it is for all ages and it is a good family book.

I loved this book. I am 51 years old and my family experienced some of the same obstacles that Luke's family experienced. My parents were cotton farmers in Jefferson County in southeast Arkansas back in 1951. They farmed for many years. I grew up on the farm and did my share of cotton chopping every spring and summer and cotton picking in the fall. My family also hired Mexicans to help with the crop. The Mexicans came by truckload, usually a family, and as many as 15 would live in the two bedroom, no bath house that we were able to supply them. Their dwelling was just as good as ours. We were a family of 5 and until 1960, our house had no indoor bathroom either. I laughed, I cried, and I remembered a childhood fraught with poverty, but filled with love and fun,fun,fun. We worked hard from early morning til dark, but as we chopped or picked, we talked about everything under the sun. We laughed and joked and bonded as a family. City kids didn't see their dad during the day on week days, we saw ours everyday, we had lunch with him, dinner with him, rode the equipment with him. What a great way to grow up. Everyone should have a life like that. True values were learned in those cotton fields. I left the fields more than 30 years ago. I have a city job, I have more money on a monthly basis than my family had in a whole year in those days. I live in a wonderful house that my husband and I built, that gets a paint job every 4 or 5 years, but my greatest memories are of the days spent in a tiny two bedroom farm house with weathered lapboard siding and a wood stove for heat in the winter, just Luke and his family.

Thank you, John Grisham, for a fabulous book. I have read it over and over, and will continue to do so. It is very special to me.