Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: About the only fairy tale we will notice is the Cinderella story called Aschenputtal in this book. It is very different from the Cinderella we know. These tales are pretty good, but kind of dark and dreary. The gore is graphically and literally depicted. There are ninteen stroies and they are pretty well developed. They really give us a great glimpse into the past. The book is designed really well and the art in the book is excellent as well. The cover is great too. If you get the book and don't like it at least you will have a unique addition to your collection.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: About the only fairy tale we will notice is the Cinderella story called Aschenputtal in this book. It is very different from the Cinderella we know. These tales are pretty good, but kind of dark and dreary. The gore is graphically and literally depicted. There are ninteen stroies and they are pretty well developed. They really give us a great glimpse into the past. The book is designed really well and the art in the book is excellent as well. The cover is great too. If you get the book and don't like it at least you will have a unique addition to your collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Must-Read For Any Lover of ORIGINAL Fairy Tales
Review: As a devout reader of fairy tales, I was ecstatic to find an anthology as complete as this one. These are not the toned down fairy tales Disney puts out; these are violent yet beautiful stories that will make anyone fall in love with fairy tales. Not for young ones.
Rating: 
Summary: I prefer the sanitized versions
Review: At least they were readable and the style of writing is more appropriate for young readers. And by that I don't mean these weren't readable because of their content, but rather the way they were written, that is not very enticingly or intriguingly at all. Basically this read as an allegory for something I already knew: that people can be cruel, violent and otherwise awful. And where's all the grim stuff the book was crowing about. Sure, there was lots of blood shed, but most of it was either relatively mild or came out rather alright in the end. I was expecting horror stories galore but what I got was the sense of heavily toned-down reading. A kid could read this stuff hardly batting an eye (as the intro itself seems to suggest). Even the sexual references are oblique enough that children would pretty much gloss them over (such as Rapunzel asking why her clothes don't fit anymore). Lastly, that Hans and Grethel story was absurd beyond words.
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the hype.
Review: From the editorial review: "Most of the tales will be unfamiliarto American and English readers, who may be surprised by the graphicdescriptions of murder, mutilation, and cannibalism" The "graphic descriptions" of the aforementioned evils are grossly overrated. They are merely stated or less yet, alluded to. Even when described, the artistry is such that the reader has difficulty connecting with the text as the descriptions are not picturesque but instead, one dimensional. Based upon the editorial review, I expected that I would be chilled and thrilled from here to doomsday. Hardly. This was a horror free read, after which I slept like a lamb. This book was the equivalent of a kiddie ride at Six Flags. However, while it did not deliver the promised goods, I did find it appropriate for a very young adult with whom you are interested in rekindling a love of stories and reading. While tame for adult standards, it might prove to be an odd twist on the traditional *G* rated nursery fare, and could possibly provoke a discussion on the differences between these tales and ones with which they are more familiar.
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the hype.
Review: From the editorial review: "Most of the tales will be unfamiliarto American and English readers, who may be surprised by the graphicdescriptions of murder, mutilation, and cannibalism" The "graphic descriptions" of the aforementioned evils are grossly overrated. They are merely stated or less yet, alluded to. Even when described, the artistry is such that the reader has difficulty connecting with the text as the descriptions are not picturesque but instead, one dimensional. Based upon the editorial review, I expected that I would be chilled and thrilled from here to doomsday. Hardly. This was a horror free read, after which I slept like a lamb. This book was the equivalent of a kiddie ride at Six Flags. However, while it did not deliver the promised goods, I did find it appropriate for a very young adult with whom you are interested in rekindling a love of stories and reading. While tame for adult standards, it might prove to be an odd twist on the traditional *G* rated nursery fare, and could possibly provoke a discussion on the differences between these tales and ones with which they are more familiar.
Rating:
Summary: intriguing
Review: I found the narratives to be engaging. The color illustrations were fine, but the black-and-white drawings were, uh, AWFUL. The book would benefit from the deletion of the black-and-white drawings, in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, as well as macabe
Review: I found the tales enchanting and different from the stories tranlated and toned down for children's consumption. The stories showed the vengence and wickedness of what humans can be in the characters that were depicted, and how the pious and virtuous were rewarded in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Far from Horror Tales. 2 Stars **.
Review: I grabbed this for free out of a bookclub: and that's about all I'd tell you to do and save your money. So why the two stars, instead of only one? I thought it was a bit comical to read this from The Brother's Grimm; the idea of children's writers cranking out a story about decapited body parts back then seemed funny to me. It's worth the time to read and just say, "I never knew they wrote this." But if you want the real thing like, Clive Barker, older Stephen King, Lovecraft, etc., look there and not here. 2 STAR RATING **.
Rating:
Summary: Grimm's Grimmest -- horrific, but enlightening
Review: I must confess to ambivalent feelings about this book. The stories are sordid accounts of hideous people committing unspeakable acts with the basest of motives. Hannibal Lecter could step into the pages of one of these stories without even a change in costume. The idea that anyone, anywhere, any time, could have considered these tales appropriate for children boggles the mind. Then why would anyone want to read them? Well, the archetypal human concerns woven into these macabre tales still pong home with disconcerting clarity, just as they did in feudal Germany hundreds of years ago. Loveless existence, infertility, betrayal, greed, jealously, incest, poverty, disaster; the stories read like a laundry list of the most tragic bits of the human experience and, sadly, the subject matter hasn't changed much, only the manner of expression. The book opens with a comprehensive introduction by Maria Tatar, which provides an excellent frame of reference for what could otherwise be merely a jumble of surreal images. In the early 1800's two brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, collected and retold old German folktales. Discovering a lucrative market for children's morality stories, they created successive revisions targeted especially for children. Sexual content was suppressed, but violence was not. Whether by popular demand of due to quirks of their own, the Grimms in some cases even escalated the violent images. Viewing the original folktales as allegorical teaching tools, designed to help adults cope with life problems, it all begins to make sense. Each story contains at least one rather heavy-handed lesson -- morality written large: "Greed will get you in the end." "Disobedient children are likely to die a hideous death." "Don't bemoan your childlessness or you may give birth to a hedgehog." I was intrigued by the little secondary assumptions that are included in the stories and give clues to the cultural orientation. Oddly enough, there are a number of strong, independent female characters. Where did they come from? Children are expendable, not entitled to love, and the challenge seems to have been how to get as much work and as little aggravation from them as possible. For women, marriage was a huge, inescapable gamble. One must marry, but the bridegroom was as likely to turn out to be a cannibal as a prince. Read these stories like a book of puzzles, looking for the main morality lesson and digging out the secondary assumptions, and they act as a mirror held up to our own society. What has changed? What is the same? What is better, what is worse? Horrific they may be, but vastly enlightening as well.
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