Customer Reviews

The Life of David Gale

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I buy books as souvenirs. On our holiday in Barcelona earlier this year, my daughter stumbled over this book in a bookstore. She is against the death penalty and found the summary on the cover interesting so she asked if we could buy this book as our souvenir. As it turned out, I finished the book I was reading and needed something to read so I asked if I could read her "souvenir".

I was completely hooked from the first page. I read it in two long sittings at a Starbuck's in Barcelona.

Our protagonist is David Gale, a well-known professor at the University of Texas. A passionate anti death-penalty activist whose world is turned upside down when he is charged with raping and murdering a fellow professor and anti death-penalty activist.

We enter the story as he sits on death row, having been convicted of rape and murder. With only one week away from the execution date, he agrees to give the journalist Bitsey Bloom an exclusive interview. Before meeting with David Gale, Bitsey is convinced that he is guilty as charged. However, during the interview David present Bitsey with new information. As she look into what he has given her, Bitsey start to believe they arrested the wrong man.

The big question in this plot is - will she be able to clear his name before execution? The chosen subject matter was a stunning idea, and one of the best plots I've read in a long time. I was caught off guard when I came to the ending. I did not see that coming at all. Fascinating!

Great read!

This is a wonderfully written thriller that explores the political fracas over the death penalty. Each character entraps interest in the midst of chaos, all while coaxing the reader to a shocking conclusion that remains elusive until the very end. I found this novel to be effectually stimulating, noteworthy, and highly recommendable.

I finally saw this brilliant movie last night. First of all, the cast was well picked and the acting was superb. The plot itself was one of the best plots I have ever seen; not only is it realistic, but realistically portrayed. The chosen subject matter was a stunning idea, seeing controvery surrounding this issue touches each and every one of us. Nothing was far fetched in any of the portrayals. As we have seen many times in our country's history, people will go beyond the normal limits to stand up for a cause they believe in, as did David Gale, the cowboy and the character portrayed by Laura Linley.
I've read some of the negative critc reviews and cannot, for the life of me, understand what these people think is entertaining and of public interest. Seems to me, these negative critics must be living in a shell....perhaps they even voted for Bush.

I absolutly loved the movie and the book. I was caught off guard when i watched the movie for the first time and was in aw by the outcome. i believe it had a great storyline and a little bit of truth to it. After watching the movie and reading the book, i had the urge to look further into the process of the death penalty. It was a moving story that i will forever remember.

This book is based off of the movie with Kevin Spacey in it about a college professor, and leading figure against the death penalty, who, in an ironic twist, is just days away from being executed.

This book was pretty bad at first, it was slow and I had to force my way through it, hoping for a pick-up in tempo and excitement. The climax is fairly exciting, but still predictable. However the ending had a different twist than I expected.

This book is not the most amazing title I have read but it may be for you if you are interested in execution stories, a big fan of the movie, or just like a quick, interesting paperback read.

The book and movie was outstanding. They both allowed the viewers to make thoughtful arguements for and against the death penalty. The governor played in the movie was chosen to look like our President George W. with the same insightful thoughts on the death penalty.

Beyond the politics of the death penalty, I will review this only based on the novel, itself.

It's obvious that this book was thrown together under deadline to support the movie release. The hackneyed writing makes my teeth itch.

This is a pulp drama trying to be intelligent and falling very short. Big words are thrown in helter-skelter with as much elegance as a high school paper written with the help of a thesaurus. Attempts at highbrow theory and references are destroyed by the constant use of "dude" to refer to cameo characters. Throwing in references to philosophy and opera does not intelligent prose make. In this case, it just sounds clunky, forced, and trite.

All of the characters are stereotyped and pathetically written. The Corrections employees and Texans are hicks, the goth is morbid and slatternly, the "cowboy" has a lantern jaw, the academics are droll and hip, the journalists are hard bitten. After meeting these caricatures I cringed as I came to the first black character, dreading what stereotype would be applied. Gram makes all his black characters hard working, efficient, and intelligent... not a bad thing, but after all the other stereotypes it seems as if he is advertising his diversity, open-mindedness, and complete lack of racism.

As for plot, this is a typical pulp pot boiler, with scenes that become shorter as the action becomes more frenetic. This clever little trick obviously fooled the other reviewers, "oh I can't put it down! It's so fast paced!". No, this is blatant manipulation of the reader so that they forget how badly the first 3/4s of the book dragged. The plot twists could be seen coming from a mile away, leading me to groan and throw down the book at the denouement, "oh god." I only picked it up again out of a sense of masochism, hope springing eternally that it wouldn't be as obvious as it was. Nope, it ended as I expected it to, as badly as I could have possibly imagined.

I haven't seen the movie. If it is anything like the book, I don't want to. Any passing interest in seeing it died a cruel and unusual death upon the reading of this horrid book.