The Perk

Right there on the cover of this book it says that Mark Gimenez is the next John Grisham. I don't think so. I have said this a lot and I am saying it again, I am a John Grisham fan, I read quite a few of his books, and Mark Gimenez doesn't have anything of John Grisham in any shape or form. But that can be a good thing. When I picked up this book I picked it because I wanted to read something other than John Grisham, I wanted to see what else is out there. If Mark Gimenez will be the next John Grisham in the sense that he would be just as famous, that remains to be seen, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The prologue of The Perk was quite intriguing, but after I got into the first chapter I wanted to drop the book. I started another one, but I kept wondering what will happen with that prologue, so I went back to The Perk to find out. The first few chapters were so unnecessarily detailed with a lot of irrelevant information. I skipped quite a few chapters. I skimmed through some reviews and since most readers were saying that the book gets really good later, I skipped over the first five or more (I don't really know where exactly it became interesting to me) chapters until the book started dealing with what happened in the prologue. That means that I don't really know who was who, I skipped over the most introductions, but I really don't feel like I missed any important detail, I could read the book just fine.

What followed in the book was interesting enough, it bordered a bit on the unrealistic, but for the most part it was okay, I could ignore some of what was happening. But not in the last few chapters.

I appreciate what Mark Gimenez created here, the book had quite the potential. The prologue is gripping, but the book itself is not, at all. The last few chapters were almost ridiculous. I think there was supposed to be some tension buildup there, but I did not get any of that. So many things happened in the background, most of which as a reader I had no idea of, no hint, until they were revealed out of nowhere.

And there is something I want to point out. That bit where someone changes the subject abruptly and the other person misunderstands what they are referring to is funny once or twice, but when everyone does it, it gets old really quick.

And what was that about the coyotes?

I still don't get why the book is called The Perk. That was in no way the main focus of the book. It started with it, it was in the prologue, but there is no way that that was the main plot of the book, this was all about Beck and no one else. Not to mention that the whole thing is spotty at best, the characters involvedI don't know what they were on about. So many things didn't really make sense and their behaviour was odd.

Going back to that comparison someone decided to make between Mark Gimenez and John Grisham, Mark Gimenez does not have characters that feel real, like John Ghrisham's do. Mark Gimenez's book did not catch my attention and did not keep me on the edge of my chair the same way John Grisham's books do. There are John Grisham books that I enjoyed less than others, but those still made more sense than The Perk.

I think The Perk had the right idea, but it lost its focus at some point. Mark Gimenez put into it too much stuff, and all of it was resolved, was crammed, one way or another in the last few chapters. It might have been better to lose some of the plots developing at the same time, or make the book longer.

Oh, and with all the skipping I did in the first few chapters, I still figured out what Jodie's deal was. Because of course, this was all about Beck. The title would make more sense if it would be just his name, or The Judge. Actually, yes, The Judge would fit this book better.

Bottom line is that the book is not the best, the comparison to John Grisham has nothing to do there and it kind of annoys me that someone looked at this and made that connection; and the title makes no sense. I would say don't bother with this one, but eh, might as well give it a try either way, it is not horrible, just too focused on showing the main character from all his sides and it kind of forgets what the point was. Also, this might be the first book I read that made use of Chekhov's Gun both right and wrong way at the same time. That's a feat in itself.