Rating: 
Summary: Nice change of pace
Review: John Grisham is such a great writer. He knows exactly how to keep you interested throughout the whole book. It's a nice change of pace from most of his other law themed books. I found Skipping Christmas a very easy read. A great book to read over the weekend, perfect size!
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious in Spots, but Fun at the End
Review: While it isn't Dostoyevsky or Dickens, neither is it the usual pulp that Grisham has been putting out lately (at least it's not Testament). This would make a good TV Christmas movie (are you reading this PAX-TV?) and that TV movie would be a classic.
Scrooge could take Bah Humbug! lessons from Luther Krank. Krank certainly tries to give them to his wife, but fortunately they don't take hold as the daughter's phone call proves. She's come home after a month in Peru, happily engage to a young doctor. Seemingly, she's fallen head over heels in love, but the ending proves she's got her head on straight about that, too. Krank has alienated everyone in the neighborhood but his daughter coming home for Christmas proves that friendship and family and neighbors are thicker than snow getting everyone (including the police, paramedics, and firefighters) to help out and fill the house for the traditional party. Actually, love wins out for the Krank gives
a typical Christmassy Scroogelike response to his neighbors' generosity even if he doesn't make a complete turn around (actually that seems more realistic).
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant Christmas Story
Review: Luther Krank is sick of Christmas and all of it's commercialism. Many people feel that way, though few people go to the extremes he does to avoid the excess and indulgence of Christmas. While the story is appealing, the characters are not well fleshed out and seem more like cartoons. Luther is the angry, bitter man. His daughter is the free-spirit. His neighbors are overbearing Christmas-lovers. All of this makes a cute story less enjoyable. It's still a pleasant read. Consider this the opposite of a beach read--a nice book to doze off with in front of the fireplace.
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?
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