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emryal's review against another edition
2.0
https://emryal.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/the-sad-tale-of-the-brothers-grossbart/
5wamp_creature's review against another edition
4.0
Oh, snap!
I enjoyed this book.
I laughed out loud a few times.
I cringed and grinned simultaneously.
A long journey, many trials.
victory and defeat.
The righteous and the wicked.
And very bad things happen!!
Many people are killed in horrible ways.
Early, at least, for those who don't like that kind of thing.
I found it very entertaining.
Highly recommended!
I enjoyed this book.
I laughed out loud a few times.
I cringed and grinned simultaneously.
A long journey, many trials.
victory and defeat.
The righteous and the wicked.
And very bad things happen!!
Many people are killed in horrible ways.
Early, at least, for those who don't like that kind of thing.
I found it very entertaining.
Highly recommended!
koboldskind's review against another edition
4.0
This is not a book with antiheroes. This is a book with villains, and the only reason you feel any empathy for them is that everyone else is at least as much a villain as them. And the characters that don't start out as villains certainly end up as ones.
For a book with villainous protagonists I'm surprised how much I enjoyed it.
For a book with villainous protagonists I'm surprised how much I enjoyed it.
caitrizz's review against another edition
3.0
There are some incredible parts of this book. I enjoy the mixture of familiar fairy tale tropes and I can surely respect Bullington's apparent effort. That being said I was struggling to finish the book. There seemed to be a lot of filler between key events and the protagonists aren't likable at all. I don't think they're supposed to be, but I wasn't that interested even in their demise. I wouldn't buy the book again but I would definitely check it out of the library.
elwoodicious's review
4.0
Delightfully profane. Bullington does his able best to pull no punches with language so that this novel is often outlandishly gross, occasionally shocking, and, more often than not, snicker producing in it's black humor. If you are easily offended or have high-minded sensibilities step clear as nothing is held sacred and all is open to ridicule, mockery, and brutish vivisections.
nigellicus's review
5.0
For the dark, cold, unceasingly wet and utterly miserable winter that’s in it, here’s a little something that’ll brighten up your day, albeit by reassuring you that if you think YOU’VE got it bad, better think again. Hegel and Manfried, the brothers of the title are a despicable pair of medieval European rednecks, narcissistically convinced of their own righteousness, who make their dubious living by robbing graves. After taking revenge on an old neighbour by murdering his family and burning his house, the brothers flee south, headed or the fabulous tombs and riches of Egypt with a lynch mob baying at their heels. Doggedly determined, cunningly violent and utterly ruthless, they carve their way across the heart of Europe encountering monsters, witches, priests, innocents, charlatans, plague and soul crushing poverty, all the while expounding their own idiosyncratic views on life and religion.
There is a great deal of nastiness in this book, as well as horrorness and disgustingness, but that doesn’t stop it from being wildly entertaining and blackly, bleakly hilarious. It’s also an effective portrait of life in 1346, grimy, grim and ugly, full of religious awe and superstition and likely to be cut short with little notice by violence, pestilence, starvation or pure random bad luck. Bad and all as the Brothers Grossbart are, there are things lurking in the mountains and valleys and forests that make them look cuddly by comparison. Well, not really,
This is one for those with a strong stomach and a wicked humour, but it is well written and hugely enjoyable, and boasts one of the best covers for years; a clever, insanely detailed optical illusion-woodcut by Istvan Oros, and while you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, this amazing image was what caught my eye initially. What I ended up with was a gleeful sort of mash up of Umberto Eco and Cormac McCarthy as written by Stephen King. So delve, if you dare, into the blasphemous, bloody, foul-mouthed world of the Brothers Grossbart. And their beards.
There is a great deal of nastiness in this book, as well as horrorness and disgustingness, but that doesn’t stop it from being wildly entertaining and blackly, bleakly hilarious. It’s also an effective portrait of life in 1346, grimy, grim and ugly, full of religious awe and superstition and likely to be cut short with little notice by violence, pestilence, starvation or pure random bad luck. Bad and all as the Brothers Grossbart are, there are things lurking in the mountains and valleys and forests that make them look cuddly by comparison. Well, not really,
This is one for those with a strong stomach and a wicked humour, but it is well written and hugely enjoyable, and boasts one of the best covers for years; a clever, insanely detailed optical illusion-woodcut by Istvan Oros, and while you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, this amazing image was what caught my eye initially. What I ended up with was a gleeful sort of mash up of Umberto Eco and Cormac McCarthy as written by Stephen King. So delve, if you dare, into the blasphemous, bloody, foul-mouthed world of the Brothers Grossbart. And their beards.
dabnor's review
4.0
I have no idea how I came to buy The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart. I don't remember where I heard of it. I just know it had been sitting in my room for kind of a while because I was going through a reading slump.
I really rather liked it, though. There's sex and violence and yet style wise, it's very much a fairy tale.
I really rather liked it, though. There's sex and violence and yet style wise, it's very much a fairy tale.
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