If you were wondering "Has John Grisham written any middle-grade fiction?" then yes, yes he has. And this is one of them. There's like eight books in the Theodore Boone series, which I might end up searching out and reading at some point.
(If you weren't wondering "Has John Grisham written any middle-grade fiction?" then that doesn't change the fact that he has.)
This one is about a kid named Theodore Boone, whose best friend April Finnemore is abducted offscreen at the beginning of the book. The plot is mostly him trying to figure out who abducted her and why, and where she is (and, tangentially, how they did it; we already know what happened and when). These guys are, drumroll please, thirteen, which means they don't trip my overused-twelve-year-old alarms.
As mentioned above, this is a light thriller. It's not particularly tense, but in parts it was difficult for me to resist the urge to skip ahead to the end and see if everything turned out okay. Technically, this is the first thriller I've ever read. And the first John Grisham book.
It's also the first book I've ever tagged with "thriller" on my blog. That doesn't mean you have to start singing a Michael Jackson song.
Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for criiiiiiiiime and a corpse.
4 stars.
(Endnote: There's an alternative cover that makes it look like the title of this one is Theodore "The Abduction" Boone.)
I did not know he wrote middle-grade fiction! Pretty cool that he has. (that alternate cover bad designing made me laugh).
ReplyDeleteDeb
Cool indeed. I stumbled upon the alternate cover while trying to find a picture of this one, and had a good chuckle over it.
Delete