Reviews

Grendel by John Gardner

terpgirl42's review

3.0

3.5

tytie's review

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

smuttea_matcha's review

3.0

I enjoyed this. The whole seeing things from Grendel's point of view was a nice experience. One of my favorite parts was the whole philosophical talk about inner heroism and all that stuff. There's so many of those talks that it's hard to mention all of them. If you read Beowulf, you should read Grendel.

justkenedi's review

adventurous reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

pingotoyopongo's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Procrastinated reading this for AP Lit. So I read it in a day 😌✊🏼

Grendel: 0  Me: 1

itouchmaeshelf's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.5

rhgrimes's review

adventurous challenging dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

neiman's review

challenging dark informative sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

mrdmccampbell's review

4.0

Lovely, insightful book that almost requires a second or third read. Having a background knowledge of Beowulf is not necessary, but I'm glad I had it.

rixx's review

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

This book decidedly tried to do things and talk about philosophy, but I don't like books that use everything just as a pretext to defend or show off philosophical principles. Didn't help that Grendel himself was just ick. I suppose this book is great for intellectual people with a brain and so on, but I found it unpleasant and yikes for the most part.

The dragon was rad, though.