Book Review - Calico Joe

Calico Joe is a very interesting book that catches the eye of many sports fan and John Grisham book lovers. Calico Joe was an upcoming baseball phenon, that had broken a numerous amount of records within months of his debut. But when stepping into the box agianst Warren Tracey, the Mets known head hunter, he probably never thought it would be the last time he ever did so.

There could be many themes to this book, but the one that really stood out to me was that you should never take things for granted because the moment you do it could be taken away within the blink of an eye. This impacted Joe because when he became the biggest mlb player in the league, it was all taken away from him due from one "well" placed fastball. This affected me while reading this book, it made me really think about how I take playing baseball for granted. I could take one fastball to the head, or throw one breaking ball too many and tear my ucl and never be able to throw a ball again. This really makes the reader think about all the things they take for granted. When John Grisham talked about Calico Joe in this book it showed him as being very humble. One thing mentioned in the book was when they were talking about his hitting streak and Joe /replied" they will get me out sooner or later." If he was arrogant he would have talked about how much longer the streak was going to last, but he didn't. The setting in this book was very easy to figure out. It went between Calico Rock Arkansas, Chicago and New York. Most of the book was placed on a baseball field.This setting affected the conflict because it is where Joe got hit in the head. This was the main conflict in the story. It really related to me, being a highschool baseball player I was really able to connect with this book. It made it very easy to read and kept me very attatched to this book, I didnt want to put it down.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loved sports. It was very easy to follow and if you are a baseball player it really made you connect with Joe. It would be great for any athelete to send the message of playing each game or each play like it was your last.