Playing for Pizza

Playing for Pizza is a departure from Grisham’s normal fare, but it’s a fun story about a washed up NFL quarterback who heads to Italy to play for a team that even Italy doesn’t care about.

Like most readers, I guess, I found the novel was missing a real story. I was enjoying the read but didn’t see what the point was. It actually reminded me for a while of my first reading of Hemingway. That was the experience then – I thought the story wandered around but I enjoyed reading about the characters. The one difference here, of course, is that Grisham’s characters in this one are not as interesting.

I happened to read this book during the NFL season when my Jets were thriving with their new washed up quarterback, so I was captivated by the similarities in the experiences of the football teams. It actually gave me grand hope for my Jets – hope that dissipated soon after, I’m sorry to report.

If you are a Grisham fan, you may be disappointed. You won’t find the normal twist of plot you’ve learned to expect. If you are looking for a quick, relatively fun read then you should pick this one up.