Girl Boy Girl, How I Became JT LeRoy - Savannah Knoop

This book is the memoir of Savannah Knoop and her time pretending to be JT LeRoy. JT LeRoy was a fictional character created by her sister-in-law Laura. During a time when Laura was a practical shut in she began calling teen help lines and pretending she was a young gay man doing tricks on the street. Laura was convincing enough that she had a psychologist sharing her stories with his class, reports that wrote news articles about JT and finally two books published. At some point Laura asked her sister-in-law to dress up as JT for fifty bucks and a wax job. For six years Savannah and Laura played this game, fooling reporters, actors, singers, movie people, and even a lover. Finally they were exposed by a reporter who figured out who Savannah really was.

Out of Five Stars I give this book Four (****). The writing is a crud but I found myself totally enrapped...not in JT but in what would possess these two woman to make up such outlandish lies and to go to such lenghts to protect them. I just wondered what is really going on with these woman. It was also facinating that they were able to convince so many people these lies were truth even when the evidence before them proved that was not the case. Naughty but truly facinating.

The Associate - John Grisham

John Grisham and I have a love hate relationship. Books like The Pelican Brief, The Firm, and The Client introduced me to a genre that I truly enjoy although I always felt like Grisham had a hard time writing a decent ending. In more recent years I've continued to read his books hoping to feel some of the excitement I felt with his earlier writing. For the most part though the story lines have just gotten more convoluted and it seems like his character is always the same guy. A moral gray guy who in the end turns to the light. Anyway The Associate is pretty much the same old, same old. You have a soon to be law student who is graduating soon. He plans to take a job doing immigration law but instead he is blackmailed into working for a large firm and attempting to steal secrets on how to build the newest bomb dropping airplane. The whole idea is rediculous, the main character gets annoying, and the wrap up as usual leaves you thinking...what? That was it?

Out of Five Stars I give this book three (***). I wonder if Grisham will ever be able to excite again.