Playing for Pizza by John Grisham Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Playing for Pizza
Book Review: Ho-hum. Maybe 3.5 stars.
Summary: 3 Stars
I have read nearly everything by Grisham, and really enjoy his writing. I knew that this was not a lawyer story, so I tried to think of it as just a book, not as a Grisham book. For the most part, this book is interesting, but I found the main events to be far too predictable. I don't want to give anything major away, but I found the whole "pattern" of win-or-lose was simply too predictable. The descriptions of events other than the games were interesting, and the descriptions of the games were also somewhat interesting, but the general storyline just was not original at all.
Also, while it was somewhat interesting to read about Rick's first full meal in Italy, the page-after-page description of every part of the meal soon became boring. Later meals were better, yet Grisham seemed to put a lot of emphasis on what people ate, like maybe he was trying to prove that he actually knew something about Italy.
Another thing that annoyed me some was the constant "thoughts" of girls and all the attention placed on finding girls. Some of it was helpful to the story, but it could have been toned down a little without ruining the book.
One other minor point is that it seemed to only take a few games for Rick to go from a relatively inexperienced QB to one who could read the other team and know exactly what to do to beat the other team. I thought that this was stretching things a bit.
Overall, underneath all the flaws, there is actually an interesting read. While there was things that I found distracting about the story, it was still an interesting book. There was a good amount of clean humor, plus I liked the part near the end where Rick showed that he had matured by actually sticking with his contract rather than following more money. Basically, I would still recommend this book. If you are a die-hard Grisham fan, don't expect much Grisham-style writing here. If you have enjoyed Grisham's writing and just want another good Grisham book, then this may not be the one for you.
Book Review: Huge Grisham fan...but in this case...rather eat pizza
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm a huge Grisham fan, but I'd rather eat pizza instead when it comes to his offering: "Playing for Pizza". The "Pelican Brief", "A Time to Kill", "The Juror" and "The Firm" are just some of my favorites. His talent and ability to produce so many novels, just blows my mind away. But "Playing for Pizza" seemed to lag behind the others. Ric Dockery threw his share of passes in this one, but they often failed to find their mark. So, maybe I should blame the character and let it go at that.Ran across a blog the other day called "Really Playing for Pizza". The author of the blog, Jason Johnson, is a former quarterback for the University of Arizona and he documents his exploits as a signal-caller in Italy and has plenty of images to keep my interest up. I know, its only a blog and it takes just minutes to scroll through and you really can't compare the two. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge sports nut, but I just couldn't get a handle on "Playing for Pizza".Book Review: I enjoyed seeing this guy make choices and changes in his life for the better. I didn't want it to end.
Summary: 4 Stars
REVIEWER'S OPINION:
Most of my reviews are on romance novels, so this is off genre for me. This is sports fiction plus some human relationships fiction. I liked it. It reminded me of underdog sports teams and/or athletes finding success or doing something positive. I did not understand some of the football jargon, but I enjoyed the story. As a side note, I believe this author is best known for his legal suspense thrillers, so this a change of genre for him as well.
STORY BRIEF:
Rick is an NFL backup quarterback who rarely plays. His weakness is that he does things to avoid being tackled rather than make the best play of the moment. He has had three concussions. He had terrible luck in one game causing his team to lose in the last 11 minutes when they had been ahead. No US team wants him, and the press ridicules him. His agent finds a job for him as quarterback for the Parma team in Italy. It doesn't pay much. In fact, most of the team members are Italian and don't get paid at all. Rick hadn't had a serious female relationship in the past and usually found companionship with cheerleaders. He was disappointed that there were no cheerleaders in Parma. The story is about Rick's life in Italy, the food he eats, and his relationships with the team members. He has trouble parking his stick-shift car. He goes to the opera, which he had never done before. Prior to Italy he didn't seem to have outside interests. His life was football practice, games, being on the road and dating cheerleaders. In Parma some new things happen including meeting a couple of (non-cheerleader) women which was fun to watch.
MORE REVIEWER'S OPINION:
On his first night in Parma, the coach takes Rick to a local restaurant. The description of Rick eating wonderful food actually motivated me to go to two Italian restaurants. Unfortunately, the restaurants didn't have the same food that Rick ate. The book starts out a little slow, but Rick grew on me. He did some neat things for the team, and I liked his female experiences. The story had a feel good ending, but I was a little disappointed because I didn't want it to end.
DATA:
Story length: 306 pages. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: none. Setting: current day U.S. and Italy. Copyright: 2007. Genre: sports and relationships fiction.
Book Review: I was not entertained
Summary: 2 Stars
I honestly did not find this book entertaining or captivating. The story started out quite nicely, and I thought I was in for a thriller. A man wakes up in a hospital bed, not knowing why he was there and what had happened to him. It turns out he was injured during a football match. That's it. That was as much thrill as there was. The story then drags on about life in Italy, food, women... There was an interesting anecdote about tortellini having been designed to resemble the belly button of a woman. Other than that I did not find anything else that was interesting or that compelled me to keep reading. I read about three-quarters of the book, and just had to abandon it. I usually set out a rule that if I don't like a book within 30 pages, I give up reading it. For some reason, I broke that rule with this book and continued reading on. It must be the other books I have read of the author that gave me higher expectations.Book Review: If not for setting his own bar so high...
Summary: 4 Stars
If not for setting his own bar so high, thanks to his earlier works, this book might be better appreciated, but then again this book is NOT what one would expect or call a traditional Grisham tale (legal thrillers).
It's easy to see where an author would quickly tire of always writing the same things, and just as easy to see how the public grows tired of always getting the same things from the author. Once an author is 'known' for a certain type of book, that comes to be what the public assumes all of their future works will be like. The problem is that if that is what all of the future tales are, boredom sets in on both sides and the public stops buying the books because they've already read the same story before.
In Grisham's case, he's tried to break the mold a few times, with Skipping Christmas, The Bleachers, and some might even include the non-fiction work An Innocent Man (though that tends to be somewhat of the same genre Grisham is normally associated with). Playing for Pizza offers another chance to write about sports, and mixes in Grisham's love for Italy, developed and/or expressed back in The Broker. What results is tale that reads quickly and entertains at a fair level for those that aren't expecting a masterpiece.
Take one damaged and flawed NFL Quarterback, transport him to Italy and give him one last chance at glory in the game he can't walk away from, add in some eloquent descriptions of the culture and foods of the regions of Italy and in approximately 300 pages you've spun a tale that will offer most readers a day or two of escapism. That's just a quick description of what the book is about, but you shouldn't be reading this for a complete description of the book. Amazon already includes a short description of the book in the product details, so regurgitating the same information here doesn't make much sense.
If you picked up this book (or had it handed to you) without knowing that it was written by Grisham, you might recognize the style and handiwork along the way, but by the same token, you'd probably just see the story as an enjoyable tale. By having any preconceived notion of what you expect from Grisham you likely would look at this work as a 3 star package. In my case I've given the book 4 stars. It's not perfect and doesn't deserve a 5 star rating, but then again I think it's better than a 3 star product. If half-star ratings were possible, I'd probably settle for 3.5 but that's not an option so 4 it is.
Were this a movie I'd probably say 'rent it', but books don't quite work that way, so it becomes a case of 'read it'.