BLEACHERS by John Grisham

I personally think that John Grisham needs to stick to legal thrillers, but I guess he feels the urge to do something different now and again.  Bleachers is Bear Bryant meets Friday Night Lights.  Revered Messina High School football coach Eddie Rake is dying and a number of his former players are having a reunion of sorts to relive the glory days.  Neely Crenshaw was an All-American whose knee was destroyed in a college game.  He has stayed away from Messina for years in order to forget the accolades and unrealized expectations.  It turns out that Neely is not the only one with mixed feelings about the past.  Several of his former teammates credit Coach Rake with having turned their lives around, but Neely and others have had a difficult time getting past a locker room incident that pales in comparison to the tragedy that eventually led to Rake's firing.  Neely's real struggle is about making peace with himself over the way he treated his high school girlfriend.  This aspect of the book seems a little forced, but I guess a star quarterback is likely to leave some broken hearts in his wake.  The whole thing seemed a little cheesy to me.