Skipping Christmas

Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: Loved it! Although I wasn't sure about the significance of Marty. If I was a Hollywood producer, I'd be casting:

Luther Krank - Jim Belushi
Mrs Krank - Marion Ross
Daughter Krank - the actress who played the daughter in Father of the Bride
Enrique - Enrique Iglasius
Marty - Sean Penn

Rating:
Summary: A classic: modern American "Christmas Carol"
Review: This charming little book will really strike a chord with many modern Americans who feel slightly oppressed by keeping up with the neighbors, and with all the hectic social obligations piled into the holiday season. The story's plot is classic comedy, made all the more delightful by the recognizable characters who populate the distinctly American "any-town" in which it is set. The American values that come through in the end are truly heartwarming, destining this to become a classic holiday tale.

Rating:
Summary: Great!!
Review: I liked this book a lot. Most people who have read his other books are disapointed because this one is not about lawyers and courtrooms. As for me, this is the only book of his I've read. It's very funny!

Rating:
Summary: NOT in league with A Christmas Carol
Review: I am a Grisham fan, but this book let me down. I am also a Christmas maniac with sappy holiday sentiments which sit me down to watch all the old Christmas movies year after year and continue to build an already too large collection of Christmas music. With that said, you know my vantage point going into this book. I was prepared to be amused by this farce - I was let down.

Luther and Nora Krank decide to skip Christmas when their daughter will be away in Peru with the Peace Corps. Its hard to tell by the tone of the main character (written from Luther's point of view)if he really doesn't like Christmas or if he just wants the break from all the fuss. Sometimes you empathize with the crowded shopping malls, the time crunch to get everything done, the expenses that are probably unnecessary, the whole commercialism, but it remained a little too "Scroogelike" for me. When he does something truly nice and heart warming at the end of the book, it struck me as too little too late and I didn't find it the redeeming gesture I'm sure it was meant to be. It was more of a grudging gift when once again Christmas had gotten the best of him. So if you're in the mood for a light-hearted, feel-good Christmas read, I wouldn't particularly recommend this one. Christmas remains the one time of year that I like to lay cynicism aside and this book didn't do that for me.

Rating:
Summary: Don't skip this
Review: Like many others, I, too, almost didn't read this book because Grisham cranks out, basically, the same stuff over and over again. But David Gannon put it best, "It turns out that Grisham has finally diverged from his mass-manufactured overly frenetic pulp thriller habit and actually written a very different sort of story."
If you like farcical characters & funny stories, buy this. And if you do, you may also like another little gem I discovered on Amazon, "No One's Even Bleeding."

Rating:
Summary: A quick read is this book's only saving grace.
Review: A couple of hours of my life that I will never regain. A potentially cute Christmas farce that falls flat and is poorly executed. The characters suffer from severe one dimensionality and Grisham's concept of character development seems to involve nothing more than a number of sentences of which punctuation is the only common element. Perhaps most disappointing is the racist undertone near the end of the book, where quite a bit of attention is paid to the skin color of a central character.

If you were interested in reading a well written book with a similar concept of a husband interested in living outside the norms of society, you might try Nick Hornby's "How To Be Good." At least he makes an effort at literature and is not merely killing trees.

Rating:
Summary: A huge disappointment
Review: I was so disappointed in this book. I saved it until closer to Christmas, wanting to read a holiday book. But this book does NOT feel like a holiday book at all. I couldn't find anything to like about any of the characters. Everyone in this book spends FAR too much time worrying about what everyone else does and what everyone else thinks of them. Grow up and stop worrying about that garbage!

It was also very predictible. I just kept waiting and wondering which little hitch would cancel the cruise plans. And the way it was done was ridiculous -- if your daughter is old and mature enough to got to another country AND be engaged, she's old enough to handle the fact that her parents (GASP!) made plans without her. The idea that she could never find out that they had planned to skip Christmas and go on a cruise was ridiculous. Aren't parents allowed to have lives away from their grown children?

Skip this one! Maybe Grisham should stick to lawyers?

Rating:
Summary: John Should Stick to Law Novels
Review: This is a horrible, horrible book. It might sound like a lighthearted, fun book to read over the holidays...but it isn't.
The basic premise of the story is about one couple that decides to "skip christmas" and not buy presents or hold the usual festivities. Instead they are going on a cruise. The book is basically abou tthem struggling to not "do" christmas and how others treat them because of it. Sample: "I think she might break," he thought. "I had better keep her away from the mall today." (regarding his wife)
So, they spend the whole book doing this, and at the end, it's all a waste. Their daughter comes home with her fiance and only tells them on christmas eve about how excited she is to show her boy how christmas is done in the US: parties, decorations, etc. So they end up blowing all of their money on getting it together. If it sounds good, it isn't. Trust me, do not buy this book. If you are otherwise a fan of John Grisham, this may make you hate him.

Rating:
Summary: A nice holiday diversion
Review: This story was well paced, light, and fun. The premise of the story is this: daughter is gone to Peru so parents decide to save the $6100 they normally spend, avoid all things Christmas, and go on a cruise. Of course, things can't be that simple. Neighborhood decorating warfare ensues, leading to a near arrest. Gossip and pettiness abounds. Grisham takes a total break from his lawyer thriller style to deliver a nice tale of Christmas that should make anyone think twice about both the money we spend on the holidays and skipping Christmas!

Rating:
Summary: Unreal
Review: Some years ago I read several Grisham books until I got tired of the lawyer as super hero motif. I decided to read this book because of the publisher's allusion to A Christmas Carol. This description is anything but apt.

I assume that the vast majority of us couldn't begin to identify with the main characters and their vast Christmas expenditures..., the nosiness of the neighbors, the expectations that one would buy trees delivered to one's door, the police and firemen selling items door-to-door, etc. The requirements to be good neighbors were satirically delivered by Grisham, but way over the top for any of us living in the real world.

So much of the book rang false, I can't say I learned any of what Grisham perhaps wanted us to learn. I truly was hoping the Kranks would succeed in skipping Christmas. The treadmill they were on is far more horrific than anything in my experience and they need all our support in getting off. Sure Christmas can be dreadful, but if Grisham's message was that the rest of us don't know how dreadful it really is and we should learn from the story of the Kranks, he missed by a mile. What I learned is that Grisham is still not worth reading.