Another of my “theme”-related reads this month. I haven’t read Grisham in a long time so it was nice to pick this one up, and while in his usual genre of legal/law-related books, this one is also different since it is YA. The eponymous Theodore Boone is a thirteen-year-old eighth grader, with a great academic record, not much into sports for health reasons, and he is also a lawyer! Well not quite, but still enough of one to be able to give out legal advice to his friends and classmates and handle cases at animal court. His parents are both lawyers (real estate and family law, respectively), and as a result Theo knows his way around the courts, has a judge for a friend, and aims to be either a trial lawyer or a judge (more so the former). When their small city of Strattenburg sees its first murder trial in years, Theo is obviously excited and keen to follow the proceedings, the first day of which his government class is taken to observe as part of a school field trip. But there is a twist in the tale when Theo finds out something that can turn the case on its head, but the secret is not entirely his to tell. How will he handle it, is justice served at the end―you will have to read on to find out.
One of the things that stood out to me in this book as a YA title―especially comparing it to some of the others that I’ve been reading, or have read descriptions of―was how “normal” Theo and his family were. I mean I know and am one to say that there isn’t such a thing as normal, but perhaps as close to the ideal normal as it gets, and this I found refreshing because while I agree books ought to be representative, be the kind that people can relate to, others that I’ve been reading had me wondering why there wasn’t even one “ordinary” character who didn’t seem to carrying a whole lot of baggage―this book is more balanced that way, it has a range of children, those with problems (broken homes, single parents struggling to bring them up, poverty, drugs), and those without. I also read a criticism in another review about how the kids in this book were not like kids that age, and while I can’t quite compare it with real children (since I really don’t know many), it does seem different from the more popular pictures of children that age.
To the actual book and characters now, I found this an interesting and enjoyable read with a likeable hero as well as other characters. I loved how Theo has his own “office” and advices clients of his own, with useful information, and the kind that he at his age can believably handle. The case itself was pretty interesting, and I enjoyed seeing how things would turn out at the end, I mean one knew what would happen, perhaps, but not how it would come about. The only thing I perhaps missed was an element of surprise or twist in the plot (which one does see in many Grisham books), which would have made it a little bit extra special. But this was a good read, and it will be fun to see what Theo gets upto in his next adventure.