Skipping Christmas

Rating:
Summary: Skipping this book...
Review: I found this holiday novella by John Grisham to be entertaining, but not a must-read. Luther Krank, disgusted by the amount he and his family spent on last Christmas and how little they have to show for it, decides that his family will skip Christmas this year and instead go on a cruise. After all, daughter Blair has gone to Peru to work in the Peace Corps, so it will just be Luther and Nora. Why shouldn't they save all that money and use it on something more enjoyable and relaxing? The Kranks don't put up a tree, don't send Christmas cards, don't have their traditional Christmas Eve party. Their neighbors and friends are incredulous, especially when the Kranks don't even put Frosty on their roof, a neighborhood tradition. However, skipping Christmas isn't as easy as Luther thinks it will be and when the unexpected happens, he finds out what Christmas is really all about.

While entertaining and a definite departure for Grisham, this novel left something to be desired. I thought that the Kranks' spending on Christmas in the past was WAY over the top (get real - $300 for Christmas cards?!?!?) and their idea to skip Christmas was fine, but they went overboard with it. The reactions of the neighbors on Hemlock Street was also beyond believable. I found them to be just a bunch of nosy meddlers, and annoying, to boot!

This is a book to check out of the library - skip buying it.

Rating:
Summary: Our Ninth Reading Selection
Review: Skipping Christmas was our December 2002 Festive Reading Selection.

This is a book where our members varied in opinions a lot. While some of our members loved the book and thought it was funny while others didn't care for the main character or thought the this book didn't live up to Grisham's writing abilities.
The majority of our members did like the storyline and loved the fact that Nora and Luther wanted to take a year off of the hustle and bustle of the Holidays to take a cruise. We all basically thought that their neighbors were rude and inconsiderate and some of us didn't think the ending was realistic.

When we polled the members for a rating, the lowest and more common was 3/5 but we did have one member that rated this book 5/5. Our average rating for this book was a 3.5/5, but for Amazon purposes I have listed it as a 3/5.

Rating:
Summary: Great quick read
Review: Great book, would recomend it to anybody. Only took about two days to read amazingly. Good story that shows how much people can work together to get something done. Also great for showing how rediculous some of the Christmas rituals can be, funny and true.

Rating:
Summary: Also skip Easter?
Review: January 14, 2003

Cute little book. For the first part, Grisham must have taken notes for years to list all the things than can and will go wrong during the Christmas season. When Luther and Nora Krank ("krank" - get it?) decide to skip Christmas and to go on a cruise instead, one is tempted to cheer them on.

But wait!! You can't do that! You cheat on Santa Claus, and your name is a vast expanse of mud - if not worse - in the neighborhood and the whole town.

So Luther and Nora crank it up and prepare for Christmas after all. Getting there is not easy as it has to supply the humor for the book. A predictable ending. But would it not have been fabulous if Grisham had followed through on sailing into the sunset and had supplied a happy ending of as different sort?

Rating:
Summary: Not So Good
Review: I am amazed at all the good reviews here about this book. I am a fan of John Grisham and have enjoyed all his books, but this one was a major dissappointment. I can't believe he wrote it.

It's not that I object to a subject other that the law,("A Painted House" was most enjoyable). The subject of this book, skipping the holidays & doing something else, sounded interesting and I had high hopes when I started reading, but Grisham's heart was obviously not in it.

Skip "Skipping Christmas".

Rating:
Summary: BORING
Review: Save your money! This book was so boring and predictable, I wish I had saved my cash! There's a reason this book only has so many pages.

Rating:
Summary: If the Grinch was a yuppy, his name would be Luther!!
Review: Wow...never in my wildest imagination did I think I would like this book as much as I did. It's campy and cute, the most darling Christmas book I've ever read. And it's quick, too. I read the whole thing while my husband drove us to my parents' house for Christmas.

For anyone who's ever been brave enough to tally up the cost of Christmas, it's amazing how a little ham or turkey, tinsel, wrapping paper and stocking stuffers can quickly put us into a very un-merry mood. When Luther's daughter Blair decides to head to the jungles of Peru to join the Peace Corps, it seems that Christmas for him and his wife just won't be the same. So they decide to do away with the whole idea and simply skip it this year. Afterall, they'll be saving a bundle....enough to skip away to the Caribbean islands to sip margaritas and eat until they pop. So they truly give it up...no charities, no gifts, no cards, no tree, no lights, no carols - NOTHING. Sounds simple enough... Cliche for me to say this, but easier said than done!

What I loved most about the book was that Mr. Grisham writes in such a way that you feel you are there. His adaptation of the typical American Christmas will probably mirror your own family's. For anyone who's ever precariously dangled off the top step of a ladder for the sake of meticulously stringing lights and perching a star upon the top branch of a tree, they could easily relate. Sure, the spirit of Christmas is beautiful. And the gifts (both giving and receiving) are truly special. And the magic of the season is unsurpassed by any other holiday....but is it worth all the hassle?? You'll be agreeing and disagreeing with the philosophy of the family in this book as they tell their story. No doubt you'll be laughing. This book is too doggone cute for words. It's certainly not worthy of a Pulitzer, of course, but it's surely worth a read. It's made it's way into my collection permanently.

Oh, and I agree with the reviewer who said this should be made into a movie....however, I would pick someone much more serious than Steve Martin. I'm thinking Dustin Hoffman....he's versatile enough to be grinchy, stoic and funny in the same role.

Rating:
Summary: Dynamics and diversity¿
Review: "Skipping Christmas" is, unlike many of Grisham's books, NOT about the law. The story begins as Luther and Nora drop their daughter at the airport to pursue time with the Peace Corps. Luther, an accountant, crunches the numbers indicating the small fortune that his family spent on the previous Christmas; since their daughter isn't in town, he suggests that he and Nora take half the money they spent and take a cruise.

We North Americans seem to spend a lot of the holiday season ... well, spending. We seem to have lost the interfaith idea of togetherness, and many have found their only religion to be shopping and spending and competing, Oh My.

Grisham's characters' dynamics are so real that I forgot that I was reading a work of fiction. Everything that irked me about these people was features in people I've known. The difference between these characters and the characters of my own world is that, in "Skipping Christmas," these characters surprised me in the end.

This is not typical Grisham. It contains little detail, though what detail there is paints a clear picture. It will not give the reader a good example of John Grisham's depth as a writer, but it will give the person new to Grisham an idea of the amount of skill he possesses.

The biggest problem with this book? As with all books by John Grisham, I finished reading far too soon.

(Purchased for me via my wishlist )

Rating:
Summary: Big disappointment for this John Grisham fan
Review: Not funny - whiney and annoying. By half way through I was so tired of the rude neighbors and other assorted characters and feed up with the whiney tone of the Kranks. I kept thinking "So get on the stink'n plane and go away for crying outloud". Sorry, I normally am easily amused, but if this was supposed to be humorous I certainly didn't laugh.

Rating:
Summary: It would make a cute movie, too
Review: Yes, it was a very light and easy read, but it was enjoyable and funny, too. We read it on the drive back from California. We also decided it would make a cute movie with Steve Martin at Luther.