I found A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor at the library's used book sale and thought it sounded like a fun read.
Snow is falling all across Minnesota as Mr. and Mrs. James Sparrow awaken in their modest Minneapolis apartment. She adores Christmas; he loathes it. Even nauseated, suffering from a stomach bug, she yearns to see The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol while he yearns only to fly to Hawaii and escape the joyless joy, the relentless marketing, and that dreadful pa-rum-pum-pum-pum song on the radio. An urgent phone call from his cousin sends James flying off to his hometown of Looseleaf, North Dakota, into a heavy blizzard. As he hunkers down in an ice house to weather the storm, stranded among his loony relatives, he is visited by a parade of figures who deliver him an epiphany worth of the season, just in time to receive Mrs. Sparrow's wonderful Christmas gift.
This book was quite the opposite of a fun read. While short at less than 200 pages, it was an excruciating read that felt about ten times longer than it was. About one-third of the way into the novel I discovered it was awful and started avoiding it. When I realized I was running out of time to pick and complete an entirely new Christmas novel, I had to force myself to open the book and trudge through nearly every single sentence. The plot was lacking, the sentences and conversations poorly constructed, and the characters annoying and unrealistic. Plus, Keillor obviously doesn't know North Dakota. I can honestly say this is one of the worst books I've ever read.
At least the cover was fun.
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