nifer's Full Review: John Grisham - Skipping Christmas
John Grisham is a stimulating author, but his novels are not what I would call "light summer reads." Crack open any of his more mainstream books - like The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Rainmaker - all of which have been adapted to film (but, of course, reading the story is ALWAYS more fulfilling than watching it) and you will be pulled into compelling stories that are difficult to put down.
Unfortunately, time is a rather rare commodity for me these days, and a good portion of my reading time has been spent in books that promise to further my career. So, when I discovered this little 177 page gem with His Highness of Suspense and Drama's name across the top, I was giddy and expected a fast-paced, mind-blowing, suspense-filled story.
I received nothing of the sort.
This story was so painfully slow, dull, and flimsy, I honestly do not believe that John Grisham could have actually written it. Starting "the Sunday after Thanksgiving" and taking us all the way to Christmas, the anti-Grisham tells the perky little tale of the Krank family. Blair Krank, the family's only child, has just departed for a stint in the Peace Corps in Peru. Her parents, Nora and Luther, feeling the dual emotions of empty nest syndrome AND the holiday scramble, decide that this year they're going to skip Christmas completely and take a relaxing Caribbean cruise.
However, it just so happens that the Kranks live in one of those psycho-for-Christmas towns where neighbors compete to see which property is more likely to be visible from space and every business and organization takes full advantage of the shoppers' open wallets. With their radical departure from the norm of their environment, the Kranks are subjected to constant harassment, belittlement, and emotional torture from the surrounding community. One neighbor even goes as far as to organize the others on the block to stage "Free Frosty" protests when Luther Krank refuses to put said character atop his second-story home, even though everyone else on the block did so weeks prior.
The climax of the story comes on page 107 when the Kranks receive a phone call from Blair the day before their scheduled departure, who drops the bombshell on them that in the short time she's been away she's fallen in love with and gotten engaged to a beautiful Peruvian doctor named Enrique, and she's bringing him home for Christmas to meet them and experience Christmas, American-style. The Kranks, being the good, waspy, it's-all-about-the-kids parents that they are, proceed to scramble about town, decorating the house, buying presents, throwing together a last-minute party, and abandoning their hard-won vacation dreams.
Overall, this book was completely non-reflective of Grisham's previous works and a huge disappointment. The only morsel of his imprint on this story at all is that it ends with somewhat of an underdog-wins-in-the-end ending, when Luther Krank gives, as a gift, their vacation package to their neighbors across the street who will likely be celebrating their last Christmas together due to the wife's reoccurrence of cancer. Other than that heartwarming little tidbit, this story was a complete waste of time and I'm grateful I borrowed this one from the library instead of buying it at Barnes & Noble.
Luther and Nora Krank are fed up with the chaos of Christmas. The endless shopping lists, the frenzied dashes through the mall, the hassle of decorati...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.