I bought and read "A Painted House" as soon as it came out as I do with all John Grisham books. I was interested to read how he treated a story that did not revolve around a legal case. He did not treat it well, and I will not buy another one of his books unless it is a legal thriller like his others.  
 
The setting of the story seemed interesting enough--a rural Arkansas farming town during the Korean War. The story takes place over the length of a cotton-picking season. It is an observation of the picking season as told by a seven year old son of a sharecropper, Luke. Luke's character is very well developed, and his is the only character that is. There are many other characters in the story, but the reader is never given enough information to really care about them. The weak character definition made for a long and boring read, as I really didn't care what became of most of the characters in the story.  
 
The book was a very long read. The one redeeming quality was that it was very descriptive. I had clear visuals of what the characters and the town looked like. The descriptive nature of the story, however, was not enough to make this an interesting story.  
 
I am not even going to talk about the plot because I really don't see a point. To paraphrase Nike, "Just Skip It!"  
