twerkingtobeethoven's review against another edition
4.0
Lance Carbuncle (sweet surname, there), you sick bastard! Mind you, given I'm even sicker than the author of this steaming pile of filth, I laughed my lungs out at almost every single page of this book. "Grundish and Askew" reminds me of Joe Lansdale, only high as a kyte. Loved it. I won't go into detail because, being the laziest yobbo in town, I can't be bothered; just know "Grundish and Askew" is nothing short of HYSTERICAL.
Four stars, because... present tense.
Four stars, because... present tense.
bundy23's review against another edition
DNF. I gave it an hour to win me over but it was just too juvenile, too many unfunny jokes about piss, shit, cocks, granny fanny, etc.
jessloveslit's review against another edition
4.0
Sometimes, you need a book that sucker-punches through the fourth wall and shakes you out of the safety and complacency of your nightstand companions.
This is that book.
There are so many traits about this book that make it worth the read, which also makes it difficult to write a coherent, compelling review. On the surface, this story is about two best friends on the run after some impulsive, horrific bad decisions are made. This book is funny, imaginative, and shockingly heart-warming. I'll do my best to give the highlights of what I think are the best features in this book.
Plot: This book tip-toes a fine line between fantasy and reality. Carbuncle creates characters that are realistically flawed (and could only exist in Florida). While Grundish, Askew, and the rest of the gang work to get themselves out of the mess they've made, they get the assistance from some other worldly beings. One of my very favorite scenes in the book is when Carbuncle halts the action to have a (harsh) literary review of the very story that is occurring, reminding readers that these are, indeed, not real people but fictional. Through Carbuncle's story telling, I find this story structure refreshing, not forced, gimmicky, or unpleasant. I definitely do not agree with [the author's] criticism that this book is being sold on shock value alone.
Characters: The men and women in this book are some of the most crass, self-destructive, and socially unacceptable characters in any book I've read in my recent memory. And Goddamnit if I didn't love the shit out of them. Grundish is an alcoholic parolee who is impatient with the injustices of the world; he is strong, burly, and covered in tattoos. Askew comes from a long line of redneck bumpkins who find themselves life-time prisoners. For lack of a better term, Askew is an idiot. He is constantly misusing common terms phrases, and yet he wields them with the confidence and seriousness as someone with a P.H.D. These are truly despicable men who do despicable things and collect other delinquents as they go along their way, including Askew's sassy old Aunt Turleene and Dora, the eighteen year old snaggle-toothed prostitute.
But, despite every odd against them in this book, Grundish and Askew have a deep, true, legitimate brotherly love for each other. The strength of their friendship and their habits of comforting each other make them, in my opinion, not only likable, but lovable. Grundish's mantra that he and Askew are "not like them other guys" absolutely ring true: they can do anything (including win over an audience) because they have each other.
Writing/Voice: Carbuncle's descriptions are anything but ordinary. He paints vivid, visceral pictures with his words. I would love to see a police sketch artist take a crack at illustrating Grundish, Askew, and Turleene simply based on Carbuncle's descriptions. There is not a tired cliche to be found in the book. Again, I have read many novels that use language as a gimmick and a selling point. Carbuncle's narration doesn't feel forced, faked, or stylized based on someone else. Grundish and Askew is unique storytelling, and I am anxious to read more from this author.
I haven't scratched the surface of why this book is great, but I honestly don't feel like I can do it justice. It's just something that has to be experienced. On a side note, I listened to the audio version of this book, which added a whole other layer of humor and drama that I really enjoyed. This is a book that I feel that I can revisit and get more out of with another reading.
This is that book.
There are so many traits about this book that make it worth the read, which also makes it difficult to write a coherent, compelling review. On the surface, this story is about two best friends on the run after some impulsive, horrific bad decisions are made. This book is funny, imaginative, and shockingly heart-warming. I'll do my best to give the highlights of what I think are the best features in this book.
Plot: This book tip-toes a fine line between fantasy and reality. Carbuncle creates characters that are realistically flawed (and could only exist in Florida). While Grundish, Askew, and the rest of the gang work to get themselves out of the mess they've made, they get the assistance from some other worldly beings. One of my very favorite scenes in the book is when Carbuncle halts the action to have a (harsh) literary review of the very story that is occurring, reminding readers that these are, indeed, not real people but fictional. Through Carbuncle's story telling, I find this story structure refreshing, not forced, gimmicky, or unpleasant. I definitely do not agree with [the author's] criticism that this book is being sold on shock value alone.
Characters: The men and women in this book are some of the most crass, self-destructive, and socially unacceptable characters in any book I've read in my recent memory. And Goddamnit if I didn't love the shit out of them. Grundish is an alcoholic parolee who is impatient with the injustices of the world; he is strong, burly, and covered in tattoos. Askew comes from a long line of redneck bumpkins who find themselves life-time prisoners. For lack of a better term, Askew is an idiot. He is constantly misusing common terms phrases, and yet he wields them with the confidence and seriousness as someone with a P.H.D. These are truly despicable men who do despicable things and collect other delinquents as they go along their way, including Askew's sassy old Aunt Turleene and Dora, the eighteen year old snaggle-toothed prostitute.
But, despite every odd against them in this book, Grundish and Askew have a deep, true, legitimate brotherly love for each other. The strength of their friendship and their habits of comforting each other make them, in my opinion, not only likable, but lovable. Grundish's mantra that he and Askew are "not like them other guys" absolutely ring true: they can do anything (including win over an audience) because they have each other.
Writing/Voice: Carbuncle's descriptions are anything but ordinary. He paints vivid, visceral pictures with his words. I would love to see a police sketch artist take a crack at illustrating Grundish, Askew, and Turleene simply based on Carbuncle's descriptions. There is not a tired cliche to be found in the book. Again, I have read many novels that use language as a gimmick and a selling point. Carbuncle's narration doesn't feel forced, faked, or stylized based on someone else. Grundish and Askew is unique storytelling, and I am anxious to read more from this author.
I haven't scratched the surface of why this book is great, but I honestly don't feel like I can do it justice. It's just something that has to be experienced. On a side note, I listened to the audio version of this book, which added a whole other layer of humor and drama that I really enjoyed. This is a book that I feel that I can revisit and get more out of with another reading.
js_warren's review against another edition
2.0
Not bad, not great. There are times when it feels like the Carbuncle is trying just a little too hard to be shocking or clever, and the constant use of music lyrics, movie quotes, etc. is a little distracting. That said, I finished this book, and the same cannot be said of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire. Make of that what you will.
uncle_duke's review against another edition
4.0
Upon finishing GRUNDISH and ASKEW, Dr. Reverend Carbuncle leaves us only one choice - unless we have already - go get SMASHED ...
An amazing - and fastidiously annotated - mash-up of Butch+Sundance, American-Psycho, Pretty-Woman, Good+Bad+Ugly, Helter-Skelter, Animal-House ... the characters all could be former schoolmates - yikes!
An amazing - and fastidiously annotated - mash-up of Butch+Sundance, American-Psycho, Pretty-Woman, Good+Bad+Ugly, Helter-Skelter, Animal-House ... the characters all could be former schoolmates - yikes!
daviddavidkatzman's review against another edition
5.0
I sing the body poop-centric.
What is Grundish & Askew? Well, the human body is quite grundish at times and definitely askew. After all, we all get sick, we all eventually get old and die (unless we’re crushed by a large object before it’s really time for us to go…and such events are, perhaps, uber-grundish). This book purports to be a buddy story, about two downtrodden fools, but I think it’s more of a meditation on all the fucked up shit that makes us physically tick. It’s reminding us that we are animals, human animals, yes, but animals with body parts that go bad, organs that spring leaks, and even minds that can’t be controlled with will-power. In many ways, we are helplessly at the mercy of Mother Nature. Alzheimer’s might be in our genes. Or perhaps a grapefruit-sized tumor is preparing to burst from our neck. Grundish & Askew slaps us around a bit and says, hey motherfucker, you ain’t some kind of flying spaghetti-monster angel, you’re made out of dirt. It’s a reminder well deserved given all the self-help pabulum that people turn to when the going gets tough.
Carbuncle’s bodily theme is communicated through the quite amusing story of two white trash lowlifes committing semi-accidental murder (repeatedly) while on the run from the pigs. Is it well told?...absolutely. Very funny and with sincere, solid characters. It’s a great adventure story. In fact, I felt the story was so well written, that the occasional footnotes that were “from the author,” giving a slight post-modern spin on the book, were unnecessary and detracted from the narrative itself, which rocked like Molly Hatchet. Yes, you need a bit of a stomach to appreciate this, but any reader willing to step out of her ivory tower and get down in the muck will love it. Highly recommended.
What is Grundish & Askew? Well, the human body is quite grundish at times and definitely askew. After all, we all get sick, we all eventually get old and die (unless we’re crushed by a large object before it’s really time for us to go…and such events are, perhaps, uber-grundish). This book purports to be a buddy story, about two downtrodden fools, but I think it’s more of a meditation on all the fucked up shit that makes us physically tick. It’s reminding us that we are animals, human animals, yes, but animals with body parts that go bad, organs that spring leaks, and even minds that can’t be controlled with will-power. In many ways, we are helplessly at the mercy of Mother Nature. Alzheimer’s might be in our genes. Or perhaps a grapefruit-sized tumor is preparing to burst from our neck. Grundish & Askew slaps us around a bit and says, hey motherfucker, you ain’t some kind of flying spaghetti-monster angel, you’re made out of dirt. It’s a reminder well deserved given all the self-help pabulum that people turn to when the going gets tough.
Carbuncle’s bodily theme is communicated through the quite amusing story of two white trash lowlifes committing semi-accidental murder (repeatedly) while on the run from the pigs. Is it well told?...absolutely. Very funny and with sincere, solid characters. It’s a great adventure story. In fact, I felt the story was so well written, that the occasional footnotes that were “from the author,” giving a slight post-modern spin on the book, were unnecessary and detracted from the narrative itself, which rocked like Molly Hatchet. Yes, you need a bit of a stomach to appreciate this, but any reader willing to step out of her ivory tower and get down in the muck will love it. Highly recommended.
kriziaannacastro's review
2.0
You know what's good about the book? The ending. For the rest? Meh. The author is trying to be too clever or I just missed the point. FYI, I got this for free back in 2011 in return for a review.
kingjason's review
5.0
Woooooooooooooooooooooo. What an awesome book! Really, really gross, very violent and really really gross.
Grundish is my new favourite character... ever. His relationship with the insane fuckup that is Askew is really moving at times. And just how proud he was over a massive poo he did had me laughing so much I had to take a photo of the page to send a friend, because my wife just didn't understand why it was so funny.
The book is well written and gradually adds more and more pace as the story nears it's conclusion. Lance has also been kind enough to include endnotes, I am always Googling words to see what they mean and luckily he saved me from having DOCKING (you'll have to buy this book now if you want to know what this is hehe) in my search history... so the book gets a point for teaching the reader new stuff. A few times during the book i think the author may have been a wee bit drunk and the characters start attacking the author about his lazy writing style, very funny if not strange.
There is a character in this book that is hinted at being in another so it looks like I need to read previous books to find out more.
If you are up for reading a story that pushes the limits of good taste then definitely give this a go. There is also an audiobook out and I think that would be good fun to listen to.
Looking forward to reading more.
Blog review is here: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/grundish-and-askew-by-lance-carbuncle/
Grundish is my new favourite character... ever. His relationship with the insane fuckup that is Askew is really moving at times. And just how proud he was over a massive poo he did had me laughing so much I had to take a photo of the page to send a friend, because my wife just didn't understand why it was so funny.
The book is well written and gradually adds more and more pace as the story nears it's conclusion. Lance has also been kind enough to include endnotes, I am always Googling words to see what they mean and luckily he saved me from having DOCKING (you'll have to buy this book now if you want to know what this is hehe) in my search history... so the book gets a point for teaching the reader new stuff. A few times during the book i think the author may have been a wee bit drunk and the characters start attacking the author about his lazy writing style, very funny if not strange.
There is a character in this book that is hinted at being in another so it looks like I need to read previous books to find out more.
If you are up for reading a story that pushes the limits of good taste then definitely give this a go. There is also an audiobook out and I think that would be good fun to listen to.
Looking forward to reading more.
Blog review is here: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/grundish-and-askew-by-lance-carbuncle/
xterminal's review
4.0
Lance Carbuncle, Grundish and Askew (Vicious Galoot Books, 2009)
I'm wondering, if I give Grundish and Askew a really terrible review, if I'll get written into Carbuncle's next book, getting killed off in some inventive and hilarious way, as happened to one unfortunate reviewer of Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked, and Spewed, Carbuncle's first (very funny) book. Because I would totally do that for a walk-on role in the next book, even though I liked Grundish and Askew a great deal—even more than I liked Smashed, Squashed..., I think.
Plot: there is Grundish, and there is Askew. Both of them are layabouts, and both of them are amateur criminals, but Askew has avoided detection on these counts his entire life because Grundish is always willing to take the fall. As we open, Grundish has recently been sprung from prison, where he was doing time for yet another thing Askew actually did. (Actually, as we open, the two of them are driving into the middle of nowhere, attempting to evade the cops, while Grundish muses over his long-ago promise that he would kill Askew, rather than letting him go to prison. But that is another story that comes later.) They're living with Askew's very old and more than slightly cracked Aunt Turleen in a trailer park with a bunch of other deviants, ex-cons, and the like. Grundish, who's still on parole, is trying to walk the straight and narrow with his job as one of those guys who stands on streetcorners holding the big signs telling you about stores going out of business while being stalked by his parole officer, a truly scary old woman who wants some of what Grundish whips out every time he's got to take a drug test (with her watching, natch). Askew, on the other hand, is making the real money by casing houses while making the rounds as a pizza delivery guy so the two of them can break in somewhere for a weekend, live large, and discover the dirty little secrets of the homeowners, which they can then use to blackmail them into not reporting the break-in to the cops. It's a good life, until one of Grundish's fellow prison alumni conceives a plan involving Grundish which Askew gets caught in the middle of. (I wish I could tell you what it is, but there's no way it would pass the censors.) Askew takes offense, which leads to Grundish, Askew, and Turleen on the run from the law.
So, yeah! This book sucks! Don't buy it! It won't make you laugh convulsively at all! (I'm using all exclamation points in this paragraph because Carbuncle did it in a review recently and I'm being a sycophant to try and get that walk-on role!) You won't be amused by the reappearance of Idjit Galoot, the hero of Smashed, Squashed..., at all! Grundish, Askew, and Turleen's adventures will not remind you at all of a weird mash-up of Jack Kerouac and a sixties biker film (with a slight bit of Reservoir Dogs thrown in for good measure)! Carbuncle is not at all an original writer, who comes up with great scenarios and throws interesting and amusing characters into them! You won't fall for Grundish's parole officer yourself! (Or, wait, maybe that was just me!) This book has absolutely nothing to say about class warfare, social consciousness, the injustice of the prison-industral complex, or interesting and alternative uses for frozen lunch meat! You will absolutely not love this book!
(Seriously, I would offer a money-back guarantee myself if I weren't pretty much constantly broke. But if you ARE one of those poor, humorless souls who buys this and somehow doesn't like it, take heed: there are many used bookstores whose staff will give you up to half your cover price back and find it a good home.) *** 1/2
I'm wondering, if I give Grundish and Askew a really terrible review, if I'll get written into Carbuncle's next book, getting killed off in some inventive and hilarious way, as happened to one unfortunate reviewer of Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked, and Spewed, Carbuncle's first (very funny) book. Because I would totally do that for a walk-on role in the next book, even though I liked Grundish and Askew a great deal—even more than I liked Smashed, Squashed..., I think.
Plot: there is Grundish, and there is Askew. Both of them are layabouts, and both of them are amateur criminals, but Askew has avoided detection on these counts his entire life because Grundish is always willing to take the fall. As we open, Grundish has recently been sprung from prison, where he was doing time for yet another thing Askew actually did. (Actually, as we open, the two of them are driving into the middle of nowhere, attempting to evade the cops, while Grundish muses over his long-ago promise that he would kill Askew, rather than letting him go to prison. But that is another story that comes later.) They're living with Askew's very old and more than slightly cracked Aunt Turleen in a trailer park with a bunch of other deviants, ex-cons, and the like. Grundish, who's still on parole, is trying to walk the straight and narrow with his job as one of those guys who stands on streetcorners holding the big signs telling you about stores going out of business while being stalked by his parole officer, a truly scary old woman who wants some of what Grundish whips out every time he's got to take a drug test (with her watching, natch). Askew, on the other hand, is making the real money by casing houses while making the rounds as a pizza delivery guy so the two of them can break in somewhere for a weekend, live large, and discover the dirty little secrets of the homeowners, which they can then use to blackmail them into not reporting the break-in to the cops. It's a good life, until one of Grundish's fellow prison alumni conceives a plan involving Grundish which Askew gets caught in the middle of. (I wish I could tell you what it is, but there's no way it would pass the censors.) Askew takes offense, which leads to Grundish, Askew, and Turleen on the run from the law.
So, yeah! This book sucks! Don't buy it! It won't make you laugh convulsively at all! (I'm using all exclamation points in this paragraph because Carbuncle did it in a review recently and I'm being a sycophant to try and get that walk-on role!) You won't be amused by the reappearance of Idjit Galoot, the hero of Smashed, Squashed..., at all! Grundish, Askew, and Turleen's adventures will not remind you at all of a weird mash-up of Jack Kerouac and a sixties biker film (with a slight bit of Reservoir Dogs thrown in for good measure)! Carbuncle is not at all an original writer, who comes up with great scenarios and throws interesting and amusing characters into them! You won't fall for Grundish's parole officer yourself! (Or, wait, maybe that was just me!) This book has absolutely nothing to say about class warfare, social consciousness, the injustice of the prison-industral complex, or interesting and alternative uses for frozen lunch meat! You will absolutely not love this book!
(Seriously, I would offer a money-back guarantee myself if I weren't pretty much constantly broke. But if you ARE one of those poor, humorless souls who buys this and somehow doesn't like it, take heed: there are many used bookstores whose staff will give you up to half your cover price back and find it a good home.) *** 1/2
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