Grump Book Review

Based on this review – https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/74692103/posts/11456, I decided to order Grump from Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1524717010/ (not an affiliate link). I ordered it December 11, 2018 and chose the free standard shipping with an estimated arrival date of December 17 – 21, 2018. For $5.99, I could have it by December 17th. I could also go with doing the Prime route and have it in two (2) days if I signed up for Amazon Prime. I opted for the free shipping so I wasn’t expecting it before the 17th. Yesterday (December 13th), when I got home, my mailbox had a package sticking out of it. It was from Amazon. I wondered if it was Grump as I hadn’t ordered anything else from Amazon. Turns out it was Grump. I didn’t get home until the wee hours of the 14th as I was visiting with friends. Think I started reading it shortly after midnight. I did take some longish breaks, but by around 4 A.M., I had finished it.  The book is around 300 pages.

As a background of me, I tend to find books fall into one of several reading categories:

1) start reading it, and stop at some point because the story, writing, etc. is that bad. If it’s something I have to read (school-related for example), then I speed read or skim it to get what I need out of it.

2) plod through as the story, plot, etc. are okay, but not inspiring enough to read at a faster pace. Books in this category can take days, weeks, or even months to finish.

3) something about the book grabs my attention and I read it through in one long setting or take a couple of breaks, but finish it fast. In these cases, I don’t speed read as I want to enjoy the book.

I wasn’t sure where Grump would fall although the review I linked above made it sound like either 2) or 3) above was most probable. As noted previously numerous times, I tend to ignore reviews since my likes and dislikes don’t necessarily fit with what others like and dislike.

It took about an hour to read the first 60 pages, but I stopped a few times for a breather. In addition to, or maybe a part of, my 3-tier scale above, ease of reading is a big factor. Typos, blatant grammar errors, plot issues, etc. can easily move something from a higher tier to a lower tier. In worst case scenarios (Turtledove comes to mind who is traditionally published), it can take a 3) and turn the book into a 1). In rare instances, I could see a 1) turning into 2) or 3) for the exact opposite reason. Over the next 4 – 4.5 hours, I continued to read. I took breaks as my eyes needed a rest or I needed a break for other reasons.

My first thought was how easy to read it was. There was a good flow to the story and it was well-written. There are only a few writers I read that come close to me reading one of their books in a day or less. Liesl Shurtliff is now part of that list. I won’t give away too many spoilers as it’s a new enough book, published late May 2018.

One thing I loved was the way Liesl made dwarves a bit different than most authors have treated dwarves; I usually consider Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings dwarves as the gold standard when doing comparisons. I don’t consider this book a parody although some reviews have labelled it as such. For me, it was Grump’s viewpoint of the story whereas the traditional story is usually told from Snow White’s’ perspective.

I could relate to Grump on a personal level as I often haven’t fit in. I got my first pair of glasses in the Third Grade. I was the only person in my class to wear glasses. Contrary to claims that young children can’t be cruel, they can be. In my case, the glasses were the Drew Carey black frame. Plus, they were also Coke bottle thick. In terms of thickness, they were -10 diopters in the left eye; don’t remember about the right eye, but glasses have rarely done much for my right eye. Thanks to Radial Keratotomy (R.K.) surgery in my left eye in late 1980, eventually I would see my thickness reduce to -5.00 diopters. At the time, it was a relatively new procedure so they weren’t willing to make the incisions too deep. In addition to the glasses, I was a nerd back before Urkel and Drew made being a nerd cool. I was one of the most unpopular kids in school for almost nine (9) years. I was also undiagnosed Bipolar Type I at the time. With this background, it was easy for me to relate to Borlen aka Grump.

In many ways, Grump is a good book if you, a loved one, or someone you know is having trouble fitting in. It was nice to see how Grump’s character turned out in the end. There were some interesting plot twists that I thought added to the book. As Book Beach Bunny said:

Recommend: Yes definitely a good one for young kids. But adults who love retellings might like this one as well. I did!