My Middle-Grade Book Review October 24, 2025
You know how the state of Ohio is low in the front, high in the middle, and then low in the back? This Middle-Grade novel, part of the Theodore Boone seven-book series, is the opposite. The novel is great in the beginning, ho-hum in the middle, then dumb in the middle (depending on your sense of humor), and then great at the wrap-up.
I was so pumped to read this middle-grade novel! John Grisham! A YA series starring a thirteen-year-old legal eagle? How could this novel go wrong? It grabbed me from the get-go. Two brothers, thirteen-year-old Woody and and seventeen-year-old Tony, take a ride from an acquaintance. Eighteen-year-old Garth Tucker feels he can do whatever he wants. Anything. So, Garth stops off at a convenience store for beer, and a little armed robbery. Garth gets in with the beer and cash, drives, and waves a gun in Woody’s face.
As often happens when you’re out cruising and drinking, a policeman pulls over Garth’s vehicle. Garth’s in prodigious poop, but so are Tony and Woody. They’re accomplices. They did nothing. The police still lock them up. In order to spring the boys from jail, Mom needs to bail them out. But she hasn’t any money and has no one to borrow it from. So what are the innocent brothers going to do?
Sit in jail is what they’re going to do. Theo to the rescue. But not yet …
That’s where the novel goes wrong. After telling us everything we need to know about bail, Grisham tells us more about history and process of bail. Much more. The story halts. Like Tony and Woody, we’re sitting there thinking: this is whack! Boring and snoring!
Then, the bail lecture over, the novel makes a sudden turn. There’s Theo, in Animal Court, the defense for a lop-eared rabbit. At first the rabbit looks cute. But it’s mighty thumping back feet reveal another side to the fluffy nuisance. Then the bunny releases a little gas. Funny? Or gross? Will this scene make a ten-year-old laugh? Or just say “skippidi Ohio” and put the book down?
If all’s well that ends well, we finish The Accomplice on a high note. I enjoyed the ending and that caused me to forgive the middle. Grisham raises significant concerns about how the innocent can find themselves incarcerated, and how people with money may have a totally different experience with the juvie justice system than the people without. So, for me, this was an up and down and down and up ride. Goodreads says four point 1 out of 5. I concur. But–I’m willing to give attorney-in-the-making Boone another chance. Look for a review of Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, sometime around Thanksgiving (my TBR pile: Mount Vesuvius!)
Case dismissed!