Rating: 
Summary: Fun!
Review: Grisham is a brilliant storyteller, with a dry sense of humour. This is light-hearted and fun, although amusing rather than funny. Don't expect the usual depths of character and plot you may normally associate with this great author. For me "The Testament" is his best. But this is definitely worth reading. I enjoyed it.
Rating: 
Summary: Promising Story line, Falls a tad short.
Review: Skipping Christmas is a decent enough novella, yet after Mr. Grishams novel "A Painted House", I was expecting something more.
The story revolves around the Kranks, a typical suburban family going through some growing pains. Their daughter has suddenly joined the peace corps., and they will be spending thier first Christmas without her. Mr. Krank, who figures that the family spent 6,000 dollars on gifts the year before on useless gifts, food and holiday donations, has a Scroogeian epiphany. With the progeny away, why pay for a holiday that has lost its meaning in over-priced gifts, cartoon sentiment and Faux cheer.
Armed with this indisputable logic, Luther Krank convinces his wife to skip the holiday and spend the time pampering themselves on a luxury cruise. Sounds simple enough, yet unforeseen complications repeatedly spring up, causing consternation and doubt. Seems friends, family and neighbors can not fathom what the Kranks are about, and set about trying to convince the beleagured couple the errors of thier heathen ways.
The story has its moments, an unbelieveable cast of neighbors who seem punch drunk on egg nog being one, and makes some very good points. The holiday is lost in sales and commercialized sentiment, and Grisham has a very neat handle on reasons why this is. Every person who has weathered holiday crowds, dealt with third cousins twice removed, and paid credit card bills, has dreamt about skipping Christmas. Yet the lead protagonists character is, at times, so crumdgeonly that despite his well thought reasons to bypass the winter event, you cannot seem to agree with his miserly tangents. In addition to that foible, he is also mean towards his wife. he brow beats her into his way of thinking and ignites if she disagrees.
In turn, she goes from meek, to mean, to undecided and back again. In fact the only reason this novel didn't reaonate with me as much as I hoped it wouls, is because of The Kranks. is this book worth the price? Yes. It is a decent departure for Mr. Grisham, and a semi-amusing read.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Timing
Review: What a lovely surprise Mr. Grisham has dropped on us at this time of year!!!! Very fitting and with lots of fun for this December month of Christmas.....the time of year all the world loves best.With the couple's daughter Blair going of on the Peace Corps Services, the couple decide that Christmas is a waste of time and money, trying to keep up with the Joneses.....and the only remedy they can find right now of beating this is 'Skipping it.' See what happens as Nora and Luther Krank (do you want for a better surname?)set sail for their adhoc-planned Caribbean Cruise getting away from the holiday tradition and the neighbours who expect so much of them, and are dumbfounded
by their sudden arrangement. Enjoy this piece of humour from a man of worthwhile surprises. Take a bow Mr. Grisham. Can't wait for your latest book THE SUMMONS. Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all my friends at Amazon.com and may God richly bless you.!!! Nutface
December 9th 2001
Rating:
Summary: Grisham's Humor Shines Through
Review: John Grisham deals with a subject my own family brings up from time to time - the commercialism of Christmas and why don't we just skip it. Of course, we never do. However, it was great living it vicariously through another family! Mr. Grisham has a great sense of humor and lets it shine through with this one.
Rating:
Summary: A FUN READ
Review: I got this book for my birthday. It's not heavy reading but it's a fun distraction from the holidays. I really laughed out loud to how the neighbors gave Luthur The grief about not puting up a frosty on his house. This book will apeal to the small inner Grinch that appears inside all of us during all the holiday hoopla.
Rating:
Summary: Bah, humbug!
Review: In his second consecutive departure from his wildly successful legal thrillers (following "A Painted House", a really good book!) John Grisham presents a modern Christmas fable in "Skipping Christmas". With their only child away from home in the Peace Corps, Luther and Nora Krank, actually mostly Luther--Nora follows along weakly--decide to forego the usual round of Christmas parties, cards, house decorating, shopping, cooking and general madcap whirl to take a Caribbean cruise. This creates a little (very!) admiration, some envy and a lot of anger among their co-workers, friends and neighbors. I must admit some curmudgeonly sympathy with the Kranks in their attempt to go a different direction. But what Grisham intends, I think, to be a light, funny reminder of the important themes underlying our too commercialized holidays, becomes, for me, off-putting. The neighbors with their anger over Luther's refusal to put up a snowman on his roof, are way too serious a reminder of suburban conformity run amuck to be truly funny. There is a Jim Carrey movie waiting to be born here: funny, slapsticky and rather mean. I don't think that is what Grisham intended.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the publishing costs
Review: I have read all of Grisham's books and liked them all (although I thought Painted House was only 'okay'). I found his latest to be offensive (is everyone in this town christian?) and ridiculously unrealistic (why would so many people care?). The ending, obviously, was predictable. Altogether, I would not give it one star; I found it very boring and only read it because my book group picked it. Grisham: Give me a break; go back to the genre you were meant to write in.
Rating: 
Summary: A Big Disappointment
Review: Skipping Christmas is well-written and has a few amusing moments. Nevertheless, I was disappointed in the book. A more obnoxious group of characters I never hope to meet, with the possible exception of Luther himself. (His daughter and her boyfriend are nice, but they only appear at the very end of the story). Nora is totally disgusting. How could any man stay married to her? And the shallow stupidity of the neighbors! Even the woman with cancer is unsympathetic. Luther should have skipped the whole lot of them and joined his daughter in the Peace Corps.
Rating:
Summary: Don't let the title fool you....
Review: This book should have been titled, Thinking About Skipping Christmas, or something to that effect. Anyone, like myself, who is reading this book for some kind of statement about the commercialization and exploitation of the holiday, should look elsewhere because it just isn't going to happen here...although every indication is given that that is what this book is about, including the title. There are a lot of comparisions to It's A Wonderful Life, but at least IAWL gave you a plausible reason for the sappily happy ending. No such luck with this one. Something happens, which is revealed by other reviewers, and everything the story has been building up to for the entire first half of the book goes out the window. Aside from the main character, who apparently is married to some twisted version of Peg Bundy, there is no one in this story, in terms of characters, that is really portrayed as having any redeemable qualities. There is a gluttony of neighbors that would make the Hatfields and McCoys cringe. Do yourself a favor, reread A Christmas Carol or The Christmas Box, rather than investing the 2 hours it takes to read this terrible excuse for a Christmas book. The only thing worse than the book is the fact that it nearly costs the same a regularbook I could have bought.
Rating:
Summary: made for tv movie!
Review: I enjoyed the story. It started out a little slow ...seemed alot like reading..."The Christmas Carol", but midway into the book it really took off. I laughed at every turn of the page until the end! Would make a great 'made for TV' movie!
|
