Book Review

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

By: Jesse Bullington

Publisher: Orbit

Publish Date: November 2009

Format: Paperback, 5 1/2" x 8 1/4", 425pages

Genre: Fiction/Fantasy

Series: Stand-alone novel

Recommendation: Nah, probably not from me.

First Sentence:
To claim that the Brothers Grossbart were cruel and selfish brigands is to slander even the nastiest highwayman, and to say they were murderous swine is an insult to even the filthiest boar.

Book Synopsis:
We ain't thieves and we ain't killers, we's just good men been done wrong.

The Year is 1364. Hungry creatures stalk the dark woods of medieval Europe, and both sea and sky teem with unspeakable horrors. There is no foulness, however, no witch nor demon, to rival the grave-robbing twins Hegel and Manfried Grossbart. This is their tale, sad but true.

My Review and Summary:
I have to start off with saying I do love the cover of this book. I thought it was cool being two pictures in one here.

The writing was a little hard for me to get ahold of at the beginning of the book, but not long into the book I adjusted well. There are different point of views given in the book, but they are not separated out in the reading. In reading along I would come to a paragraph which in the first sentence changed views quickly, but the nice thing was in that first sentence of change it specified whos view you where changing to.

With each of the characters I came across in the book there was a short story written into the book on them. A few of them told their story as a whole chapter of their own. I enjoyed these short stories. I felt more interested in the short stories at times than the story of the Grossbart brothers. The story of the Grossbart brothers dragged for me many times in the book. But the brothers had very unique views in the book.

The Grossbart brothers had very distinctive views on Religion, Mercy, and life in general. The brothers seem to be the victims of their narrow view of Religion. Their view of Religion and life seemed to have a personal twist to it. If someone did not see things in the same light as the brothers they figured that person to be a heretic of the religious belief of the Virgin Mary and killed them. Through the book no one seemed to be able to stand the brothers for long, everyone either wanted to kill them or just be away from them.

One thing I did like through the book was when a character left the brothers presence and went about their way you got a short blip on what happened to that person after they left. This gave a closing to me as a reader to all the characters in the story.

If you do read this book be ready for some gruesome scenes and to come across twin brothers that could be the two men you love to hate.