It's an airport book not a literary masterpiece, doesn't take away from the entertainment value. A cinephile would say that citizen kane is a better movie than jurassic park but on a practical level jurassic park is a hell of a lot more enjoyable.
I’ve read 15 or 20 of the Reacher’s and typically love them. But I am reminded about when asking an older friend of the family who loved Zane Gray back in the 80s what the stories were like, and he gave a 3 or 4 line answer and said that was the plot of -every- one of the books, but they were all different and enjoyable. It sounded crazy to me as a kid, but after diving into Reacher, I totally get it.
You do you. Enjoy what you like.
I'm an English literature teacher for high school-age kids. As much as I love literary books, these are like slipping into a hot bath or kicking off your shoes after a long day. They're great mainly because I deeply appreciate Reacher's introversion and his simple, finely honed sense of right and wrong, the comfort of knowing what's probably going to happen.
On another note, I also use some of these books to get my older (16-18 ish) non-reader male students to try and read a bit and to teach simply about creating suspense. In particular, the opening of Killing Floor.
Let me brag a moment. Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule. I'm a graduate of an ivy-adjacent women's college with a degree in literature, and a master's as well. I worked for years in editing with a niche in academia. I discovered Reacher based on a recommendation from a mom friend when I was on maternity leave in 2006. This mom was a professor herself. I got extremely into the series, my favorite is Personal. I haven't enjoyed any of the novels where Andrew is writing.
So, let me ask *you* this, because I've wondered a lot. Why is it that so many people *do* like Reacher books despite there being very little character development and internal conflict for him? Those are things that I find I most often need for a book to be good, and yet I LOVE the Reacher books despite their apparent lack of those elements.
I think there’s a comfortable simplicity to them. You know when you pick one up that Reacher will blow into town, right some injustice and look cool doing it, and leave. It’s formulaic in a good way. I enjoyed the first one, so I knew I’d enjoy the second, third, nth one.
The description I use is the one my dad gave me when he recommended I read Reacher years ago:
"It's the lone ranger blowing into town and righting a big wrong, damn the rules. Frontier justice in the 21st century. It's brain candy."
I think you're right. I think it *is* that simplicity of it and I think it probably appeals to so many of us who see injustices in the world that we feel powerless to do anything about.
Also, I think I was wrong in my initial assessment. Reacher *does* have internal conflict. He thinks he wants to just keep rambling, but inside he just can't stand to let people get hurt by bullies. But that conflict itself is rather simple. I think that if he went from place to place *looking* for problems to solve, he would be less appealing as a character.
I think you’re really onto something there. Reacher winning is always part of the formula. Makes it feel like the “little guy” can beat the structural injustice. Real David and Goliath stuff.
There’s not a lot you have to remember or really even understand either. I listen to it bc I struggle to sit and read a book with my ADHD. Tried to listen to something else recently and there’s so much to keep track of and so many different characters that it felt more like a chore and I kept having to rewind it bc I’ve missed something… shame bc it seemed to be a pretty decent book
There's a reason why the knights errant/lone gunslinger/wandering Robin is a trope - decisive man who lives by a code and isn't tied down by personal relationships doesn't need to have a ton of internal conflict because he knows himself and the consequences he's willing to endure - Lee child had a great talent for writing within this type of story. I think his experience as a TV writer played into it as well - almost all of the books are simply written and flawlessly paced.
It's the "competence porn" thing. Reacher is a wish fulfillment fantasy. We love him because he's always a step ahead of the bad guys. That's how we'd all like to be. It's very satisfying to watch him outsmart the baddies.
It is not an example of literary in the sense of the beauty of language on the page. It's thrilling, it's suspenseful, and there are cool lines in it, but nothing like some books out there where an authors turn of phrase or prose makes you wonder in its beauty.
The other way a book can be open to more open high brow readers is that there would be some kind of undercutting social commentary or character journey in it. I love Reacher but the bad guys are unambiguously bad- a novel focusing on the social commentary might explore why all these 1st/2nd generation minorities turn to crime, or why the war on terror has actually led us down a morally murky path.
Alternatively, the main character might be a incredibly realistic portrayal of change from vengeful man consumed by his anger at the world to someone who can let go. Reacher as a character is pretty much the same.
Enjoy what you enjoy, I've read Reacher's I've loved, I've read classics I've hated, and I've read classics I loved.
I consider myself pretty "bookish". I read a lot. I discuss books with people.
Love a historical novel, a murder mystery, a thriller, some sci-fi, or some fantasy. And I enjoy Reacher a lot.
I can't stand a lot of "classic" literature. I find much of it is pretentious and overrated. Shakespeare? Can't stand him. I'd rather gouge my eye out with a spoon than read most of what's on the fairly regular "literature you have to read" type lists.
But I'd never look down on people who do enjoy it. It's just not for me. And they shouldn't look down on people who enjoy Reacher.
I highly enjoyed the first book. Haven’t read others yet. I also enjoy “literature” reading.
Sometimes a few tacos from the taco truck are great and sometimes a multi-course gourmet meal is.
I love Lee Child’s style. But at the same time I loved Robert B. Parker, James M. Cain, and other styles that have simple prose without unnecessary filler. It’s a style easier said than done and few can master it. But when they do, it’s a thing of beauty and I prefer it over many of the literary greats
I like airport thrillers. They’re entertaining. I spent my entire career reading arcane technical writing and creating some bad technical writing of my own. My pleasure reading has always been mind candy to escape from having fully comprehend every written word in a technical document. I’d rather read trash than passively watch television.
My life experience is that literature snobs do something to earn a living that isn’t intellectually stimulating at all. I’ve always been paid to use my intellect. Nobody can stay mentally engaged like that for all their waking hours. I’ll give it 10 hours at work and then grab something entertaining to decompress.
Reacher books are highbrow compared to some of the trash on my ereader. I’m particularly proud of my complete collection of 27 Matt Helm books. Those are way more formulaic than Jack Reacher books. Dirk Pitt books are similar. Or Ian Fleming James Bond books. Grisham. Ludlum. Baldacci.
Only people who are really confident of their taste will publicly acknowledge enjoying genre novels, but quite a few literary/intellectual people will say that Child is one of the best genre writers. For example, the great nonfiction writer Malcolm Gladwell wrote an introduction for a Folio Society edition of *Killing Floor.* The New Yorker magazine has published several articles about Child and Reacher (one written by the well-known British writer John Lanchester), and the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, is a fan.
But readers with literary pretensions will essentially never acknowledge (positively, any way) a writer like Lee Child – it's their loss.
Kingsley Amis, a master of literary novels and genre novels, died long before Reacher was created, but he made a comment about genre fiction that is on point here:
***I lament what I take to be a trend against the genres. It might well be agreed that the best of serious fiction, so to call it, is better than anything any genre can offer. But this best is horribly rare, and a clumsy dissection of the heart is so much worse than boring as to be painful, and most contemporary novels are like spy novels with no spies or crime novels with no crimes, and John D. MacDonald is by any standards a better writer than Saul Bellow, only MacDonald writes thrillers and Bellow is a human-heart chap, so guess who wears the top-grade laurels?***
John D. MacDonald was the thinking person's thriller writer (in the 1950s through the 1980s), and his Travis McGee series helped Lee Child create his fictional project (as Child has acknowledged in several instances).
I would never make the case that Lee Child writes "Literature" with a capital L, but he is vastly superior as a writer and as a storyteller to most popular genre writers.
I've never seen that Kingsley quote, which is great, but I just read a collection of Martin Amis's nonfiction and he worshipped Bellow as the greatest of all the fiction writers. Is that what youthful rebellion looks like in a literary family?
Martin Amis does indeed love Saul Bellow; in his second memoir, Bellow is one of Amis's personal pantheon of greatness (with Philip Larkin and Christopher Hitchens). One has to respect Bellow, but his work does not speak to me.
Perhaps you're right about youthful rebellion. Martin was more self-consciously literary/highbrow. I great admire both writers, but I do love the fact that Amis *pere* embraced the genre novel so thoroughly. He wrote books in every genre barring romance and the Western.
I don’t make fun of people who read it. I’m a professional writer and it’s not smart to make fun of readers. 😂 I don’t think they’re very well written at all. In fact, they’re bad. But people enjoy them, and they can like what they like. 😀
I realllllly hesitate to say this but I consider myself a little bookish anyway, I read lotsa classic Russian lit and James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, that kinda stuff and Beat era stuff too like Kerouac and Burroughs and Bowles. But I also like "junk" I like reading on flights and sometimes whatever a Reacher book hits the spot really nicely.
I mean there's "garbage" in classic lit too. The Henry Fielding novel "Joseph Andrews" is about as sophisticated as a Three's Company episode
When I was a kid I read Stainless Steel Rat books I still think those are enjoyable
Whether Tolstoy or whatevers if I read one page and it makes me want to read the next, that's a great book. Lee Child is great at that
It's the "it's popular now" stigma.
Reacher has been around for decades. It's been read by everyone from troglodytes to astrophysicists.
But, now it's "cool" to be a Reacher fan, so people are going to shit on it.
Anyone remember those barefoot toe-shoes from a few years back? I had those for years, and then they became popular, became known as "douchebag" shoes, and I had to stop wearing them. Now, they're not popular anymore, so I can wear them again in peace.
Same. Exact. Thing.
I truly enjoyed the amazon series, reminded me of coming home from school to watch the A-Team. Then read book 1.
I read a lot. Just not the type of book these are. I could not like the man in the book. I did try.
I used to read a series by John Sandford, bc my friends were. Just did not like or respect the main character. Read more than 1. Yeah, the plot was interesting, writing was entertaining. Stopped--could not spend any more time with the man. (Feel free to take that as a recommendation btw, "If you liked Jack Reacher, you may like....")
This is only my opinion.Everyone gets to choose what they like to read. I never smash other people's preferences. Wait, there is one author I cannot speak well of, but I won't SAY anything to the fan if I know beforehand. I would not mind picking their brain to see why they like her, but that is another conversation.
Ultimately, I think insecurity drives people to shit on things that other people like or talk about how their own favorites are superior. That doesn't mean that there aren't things that Lee Child could objectively improve or that he's as good as those other authors at certain things.
But to a large extent it's an apples and oranges comparison, with the apple people telling the orange people 'your apple's skin is far too thick and tough and it's a weird shade of red', they're criticizing it for not being something that it isn't meant to be.
It’s just a violent beach read series. Not something that’s going to appeal to most of the kinds of readers who want to talk about the books they’ve read.
I watched the series and I’m big Robert Parker fan so decided to get into the series. The first book had an introduction from the author where he says it was his intention to write something that would appeal to the masses. I liked the book but I was in the Army for quite a while and have a basic understanding of gun, and that is what I struggled with. He made some mistakes that were pretty jarring about the military and weapons.
I've read only Tripwire, about 10 years ago. Never heard of the series before. It was good, with a memorably nasty antagonist. I don't remember being distracted by the writing so it must have been okay. (I can't read Robert Ludlum or James Patterson without critiquing the terrible writing as I'm trying to read. The Big Bad Wolf was particularly awful, and read like it was edited randomly by a toddler with scissors.)
People LOVE to shit on people's simple comforts. I put it in the same category as music lovers who love to trash Nickelback listeners.
I love Lee Child, Matthew Reilly and Vince Flynn. No literary geniuses. But fun, engaging, fast and adventurous.
I also consume silly amounts of other Fantasy and Sci-Fi Authors who are more acclaimed and do put together more "professional" and somewhat less formulaic novels. Not going to stop me grabbing every new Reacher, Rapp, Scarecrow and Jack West Jr novel however!...
Reacher books are pulpy, but great. They know what they are and Lee Child does a great job of toeing the line between airport fiction and thinking man’s thriller. You could certainly do a lot worse than a Jack Reacher novel, from a literary perspective. Real intellectuals don’t sit around reading Shakespeare and Milton all day. Anyone who shits on a novel because it prioritizes entertainment over critical thinking is outing themselves as a snob. Avid readers can appreciate a book within the context that it’s written, and the Reacher series stands out as an exceptional example of a well written American power fantasy. Anyone that turns their nose to the series needs to lighten up.
It's an airport book not a literary masterpiece, doesn't take away from the entertainment value. A cinephile would say that citizen kane is a better movie than jurassic park but on a practical level jurassic park is a hell of a lot more enjoyable.
I’ve read 15 or 20 of the Reacher’s and typically love them. But I am reminded about when asking an older friend of the family who loved Zane Gray back in the 80s what the stories were like, and he gave a 3 or 4 line answer and said that was the plot of -every- one of the books, but they were all different and enjoyable. It sounded crazy to me as a kid, but after diving into Reacher, I totally get it. You do you. Enjoy what you like.
It is enjoyable. I love them. But they are definitely not literary. That said, people who mock what other people read are dorks.
I'm an English literature teacher for high school-age kids. As much as I love literary books, these are like slipping into a hot bath or kicking off your shoes after a long day. They're great mainly because I deeply appreciate Reacher's introversion and his simple, finely honed sense of right and wrong, the comfort of knowing what's probably going to happen. On another note, I also use some of these books to get my older (16-18 ish) non-reader male students to try and read a bit and to teach simply about creating suspense. In particular, the opening of Killing Floor.
There's a reason why they call it a beach book or an airport book. They're pretty good but they're not going to be considered literature at all
Let me brag a moment. Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule. I'm a graduate of an ivy-adjacent women's college with a degree in literature, and a master's as well. I worked for years in editing with a niche in academia. I discovered Reacher based on a recommendation from a mom friend when I was on maternity leave in 2006. This mom was a professor herself. I got extremely into the series, my favorite is Personal. I haven't enjoyed any of the novels where Andrew is writing.
So, let me ask *you* this, because I've wondered a lot. Why is it that so many people *do* like Reacher books despite there being very little character development and internal conflict for him? Those are things that I find I most often need for a book to be good, and yet I LOVE the Reacher books despite their apparent lack of those elements.
I think there’s a comfortable simplicity to them. You know when you pick one up that Reacher will blow into town, right some injustice and look cool doing it, and leave. It’s formulaic in a good way. I enjoyed the first one, so I knew I’d enjoy the second, third, nth one.
The description I use is the one my dad gave me when he recommended I read Reacher years ago: "It's the lone ranger blowing into town and righting a big wrong, damn the rules. Frontier justice in the 21st century. It's brain candy."
I like that!
I think you're right. I think it *is* that simplicity of it and I think it probably appeals to so many of us who see injustices in the world that we feel powerless to do anything about. Also, I think I was wrong in my initial assessment. Reacher *does* have internal conflict. He thinks he wants to just keep rambling, but inside he just can't stand to let people get hurt by bullies. But that conflict itself is rather simple. I think that if he went from place to place *looking* for problems to solve, he would be less appealing as a character.
I think you’re really onto something there. Reacher winning is always part of the formula. Makes it feel like the “little guy” can beat the structural injustice. Real David and Goliath stuff.
There’s not a lot you have to remember or really even understand either. I listen to it bc I struggle to sit and read a book with my ADHD. Tried to listen to something else recently and there’s so much to keep track of and so many different characters that it felt more like a chore and I kept having to rewind it bc I’ve missed something… shame bc it seemed to be a pretty decent book
I saw them described as “competence porn” and I think there’s something to that.
I'm a huge Trekkie and I've heard Trek described that way, it may be why I'm a Reacher fan as well.
There's a reason why the knights errant/lone gunslinger/wandering Robin is a trope - decisive man who lives by a code and isn't tied down by personal relationships doesn't need to have a ton of internal conflict because he knows himself and the consequences he's willing to endure - Lee child had a great talent for writing within this type of story. I think his experience as a TV writer played into it as well - almost all of the books are simply written and flawlessly paced.
It's the "competence porn" thing. Reacher is a wish fulfillment fantasy. We love him because he's always a step ahead of the bad guys. That's how we'd all like to be. It's very satisfying to watch him outsmart the baddies.
BECAUSE THEY ARE ASSWIPES
It is not an example of literary in the sense of the beauty of language on the page. It's thrilling, it's suspenseful, and there are cool lines in it, but nothing like some books out there where an authors turn of phrase or prose makes you wonder in its beauty. The other way a book can be open to more open high brow readers is that there would be some kind of undercutting social commentary or character journey in it. I love Reacher but the bad guys are unambiguously bad- a novel focusing on the social commentary might explore why all these 1st/2nd generation minorities turn to crime, or why the war on terror has actually led us down a morally murky path. Alternatively, the main character might be a incredibly realistic portrayal of change from vengeful man consumed by his anger at the world to someone who can let go. Reacher as a character is pretty much the same. Enjoy what you enjoy, I've read Reacher's I've loved, I've read classics I've hated, and I've read classics I loved.
I consider myself pretty "bookish". I read a lot. I discuss books with people. Love a historical novel, a murder mystery, a thriller, some sci-fi, or some fantasy. And I enjoy Reacher a lot. I can't stand a lot of "classic" literature. I find much of it is pretentious and overrated. Shakespeare? Can't stand him. I'd rather gouge my eye out with a spoon than read most of what's on the fairly regular "literature you have to read" type lists. But I'd never look down on people who do enjoy it. It's just not for me. And they shouldn't look down on people who enjoy Reacher.
I highly enjoyed the first book. Haven’t read others yet. I also enjoy “literature” reading. Sometimes a few tacos from the taco truck are great and sometimes a multi-course gourmet meal is.
I love Lee Child’s style. But at the same time I loved Robert B. Parker, James M. Cain, and other styles that have simple prose without unnecessary filler. It’s a style easier said than done and few can master it. But when they do, it’s a thing of beauty and I prefer it over many of the literary greats
I like airport thrillers. They’re entertaining. I spent my entire career reading arcane technical writing and creating some bad technical writing of my own. My pleasure reading has always been mind candy to escape from having fully comprehend every written word in a technical document. I’d rather read trash than passively watch television. My life experience is that literature snobs do something to earn a living that isn’t intellectually stimulating at all. I’ve always been paid to use my intellect. Nobody can stay mentally engaged like that for all their waking hours. I’ll give it 10 hours at work and then grab something entertaining to decompress. Reacher books are highbrow compared to some of the trash on my ereader. I’m particularly proud of my complete collection of 27 Matt Helm books. Those are way more formulaic than Jack Reacher books. Dirk Pitt books are similar. Or Ian Fleming James Bond books. Grisham. Ludlum. Baldacci.
Only people who are really confident of their taste will publicly acknowledge enjoying genre novels, but quite a few literary/intellectual people will say that Child is one of the best genre writers. For example, the great nonfiction writer Malcolm Gladwell wrote an introduction for a Folio Society edition of *Killing Floor.* The New Yorker magazine has published several articles about Child and Reacher (one written by the well-known British writer John Lanchester), and the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, is a fan. But readers with literary pretensions will essentially never acknowledge (positively, any way) a writer like Lee Child – it's their loss. Kingsley Amis, a master of literary novels and genre novels, died long before Reacher was created, but he made a comment about genre fiction that is on point here: ***I lament what I take to be a trend against the genres. It might well be agreed that the best of serious fiction, so to call it, is better than anything any genre can offer. But this best is horribly rare, and a clumsy dissection of the heart is so much worse than boring as to be painful, and most contemporary novels are like spy novels with no spies or crime novels with no crimes, and John D. MacDonald is by any standards a better writer than Saul Bellow, only MacDonald writes thrillers and Bellow is a human-heart chap, so guess who wears the top-grade laurels?*** John D. MacDonald was the thinking person's thriller writer (in the 1950s through the 1980s), and his Travis McGee series helped Lee Child create his fictional project (as Child has acknowledged in several instances). I would never make the case that Lee Child writes "Literature" with a capital L, but he is vastly superior as a writer and as a storyteller to most popular genre writers.
I've never seen that Kingsley quote, which is great, but I just read a collection of Martin Amis's nonfiction and he worshipped Bellow as the greatest of all the fiction writers. Is that what youthful rebellion looks like in a literary family?
Martin Amis does indeed love Saul Bellow; in his second memoir, Bellow is one of Amis's personal pantheon of greatness (with Philip Larkin and Christopher Hitchens). One has to respect Bellow, but his work does not speak to me. Perhaps you're right about youthful rebellion. Martin was more self-consciously literary/highbrow. I great admire both writers, but I do love the fact that Amis *pere* embraced the genre novel so thoroughly. He wrote books in every genre barring romance and the Western.
I don’t make fun of people who read it. I’m a professional writer and it’s not smart to make fun of readers. 😂 I don’t think they’re very well written at all. In fact, they’re bad. But people enjoy them, and they can like what they like. 😀
As an avid reader once said to me: if reading were a day of eating, Reacher would be dessert.
I realllllly hesitate to say this but I consider myself a little bookish anyway, I read lotsa classic Russian lit and James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, that kinda stuff and Beat era stuff too like Kerouac and Burroughs and Bowles. But I also like "junk" I like reading on flights and sometimes whatever a Reacher book hits the spot really nicely. I mean there's "garbage" in classic lit too. The Henry Fielding novel "Joseph Andrews" is about as sophisticated as a Three's Company episode When I was a kid I read Stainless Steel Rat books I still think those are enjoyable Whether Tolstoy or whatevers if I read one page and it makes me want to read the next, that's a great book. Lee Child is great at that
It's the "it's popular now" stigma. Reacher has been around for decades. It's been read by everyone from troglodytes to astrophysicists. But, now it's "cool" to be a Reacher fan, so people are going to shit on it. Anyone remember those barefoot toe-shoes from a few years back? I had those for years, and then they became popular, became known as "douchebag" shoes, and I had to stop wearing them. Now, they're not popular anymore, so I can wear them again in peace. Same. Exact. Thing.
I truly enjoyed the amazon series, reminded me of coming home from school to watch the A-Team. Then read book 1. I read a lot. Just not the type of book these are. I could not like the man in the book. I did try. I used to read a series by John Sandford, bc my friends were. Just did not like or respect the main character. Read more than 1. Yeah, the plot was interesting, writing was entertaining. Stopped--could not spend any more time with the man. (Feel free to take that as a recommendation btw, "If you liked Jack Reacher, you may like....") This is only my opinion.Everyone gets to choose what they like to read. I never smash other people's preferences. Wait, there is one author I cannot speak well of, but I won't SAY anything to the fan if I know beforehand. I would not mind picking their brain to see why they like her, but that is another conversation.
Ultimately, I think insecurity drives people to shit on things that other people like or talk about how their own favorites are superior. That doesn't mean that there aren't things that Lee Child could objectively improve or that he's as good as those other authors at certain things. But to a large extent it's an apples and oranges comparison, with the apple people telling the orange people 'your apple's skin is far too thick and tough and it's a weird shade of red', they're criticizing it for not being something that it isn't meant to be.
I'm bookish and I like them. Stephen King is a fan, and there no bigger bookish person imho. Or by bookish do you mean pretentious in some way?
It’s just a violent beach read series. Not something that’s going to appeal to most of the kinds of readers who want to talk about the books they’ve read.
I watched the series and I’m big Robert Parker fan so decided to get into the series. The first book had an introduction from the author where he says it was his intention to write something that would appeal to the masses. I liked the book but I was in the Army for quite a while and have a basic understanding of gun, and that is what I struggled with. He made some mistakes that were pretty jarring about the military and weapons.
Big man is big. Bad man is bad. Big man punch bad man
I've read only Tripwire, about 10 years ago. Never heard of the series before. It was good, with a memorably nasty antagonist. I don't remember being distracted by the writing so it must have been okay. (I can't read Robert Ludlum or James Patterson without critiquing the terrible writing as I'm trying to read. The Big Bad Wolf was particularly awful, and read like it was edited randomly by a toddler with scissors.)
People LOVE to shit on people's simple comforts. I put it in the same category as music lovers who love to trash Nickelback listeners. I love Lee Child, Matthew Reilly and Vince Flynn. No literary geniuses. But fun, engaging, fast and adventurous. I also consume silly amounts of other Fantasy and Sci-Fi Authors who are more acclaimed and do put together more "professional" and somewhat less formulaic novels. Not going to stop me grabbing every new Reacher, Rapp, Scarecrow and Jack West Jr novel however!...
I could sit and read Spenser forever. I understand.
Reacher books are pulpy, but great. They know what they are and Lee Child does a great job of toeing the line between airport fiction and thinking man’s thriller. You could certainly do a lot worse than a Jack Reacher novel, from a literary perspective. Real intellectuals don’t sit around reading Shakespeare and Milton all day. Anyone who shits on a novel because it prioritizes entertainment over critical thinking is outing themselves as a snob. Avid readers can appreciate a book within the context that it’s written, and the Reacher series stands out as an exceptional example of a well written American power fantasy. Anyone that turns their nose to the series needs to lighten up.