Unfortunately, this book didn't download properly and I was unable to read it.

This is a shame as I definitely loved the premise and felt I would have really enjoyed the stories.

2.5/5

A big thank-you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for giving me a copy of this book for an unbiased review.

This book kept hovering between 2 and 4 stars for me. The beginning was wonderful - magical, poetic, filled with unexpected characters and events. I loved the dreamy symbolism, the lilting language. But a 400+ page collection of interconnected short stories can't survive on dreaminess alone. Eventually, I began to crave plot. The narration grew heavy with a departure from Brunt Boggart and eventually became almost overbearing. I couldn't keep my characters straight. By the time we arrived in Arleccra, I barely knew what was happening. The dreamy landscape became increasingly more nightmarish and without a tangible plot, the "tapestry" of dreams unraveled.

2.5 stars for characters I loved and for images I enjoyed. For sentences I wrote down. But even a dream should tell a story and I felt that this one was lost somewhere in the journeying between wakefulness and slumber.

This wasn't quite what I was expecting it would be. I didn't hate it, but I wasn't as in love with it as I had hoped I would be. I liked the stories, they were well written and interesting. But they just fell a little flat.

I love worlds like the one in this story! I wish places existed like this! For better or worse, I'd find a way to live there. I am a lover of folk and fairy tales, and sci-fi and fantasy, too. I enjoyed this story very much. I am sure middle schoolers will love it as well. It's magical and the author just painted such wonderful dreams (and nightmares!) with words. I will be purchasing this book for my own collection to enjoy again and again. great addition to a school or children's library collection.

I appreciate having had an opportunity to read and review this book. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer simply to advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

"Brunt Boggart" by David Greygoose was a fascinating collection of short stories geared to the middle school aged and young adults. It contains many exciting animal tales in a genre similar to "The Green Ember" and the "Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of Nimh." It is a lengthy book that one could take their time reading through each story one by one.

There is so much content in this book it should delight young readers for a good amount of time as they work their way through the tales. It was a great read!

I received this eBook free of charge from Pushkin Press via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. I did not receive any fiscal compensation from either company for this review and the opinions expressed herein are entirely my own.

Thank you so much to Pushkin Press for sending me a review copy through NetGalley of Brunt Boggart by David Greygoose.

This book was very creative in the way it was created and written, creating a multiplayer of folk tales set in one place. I can totally see people loving and enjoying the tales told within this book. It had so much thought and depth into it creating this whole world that has lots of stories to tell.

For me though I wasn’t able to get into the book, and couldn’t enjoy it unfortunately, plus the sheer size of it felt so daunting and made it hard to read.

Expect the unexpected is how I would rate this book if I wasn't expected to rate in stars.

This was a strange and surreal collection of fantastical tales woven in English but at times I felt that I was reading in tongues. I'm not quite sure my review can do it justice but I'll try but honestly I believe it'll be a much better service if you read this yourself. The Brunt Boggart is a different book than what I usually read and by that I mean it's a collection of vast landscapes, dreams, and nightmares woven together.

These short stories pack a punch and the prose is poetic.

At times it can be heady however and I admit I was lost and confused in the murky haze quite a few times. I had to put it down to sort myself out. This isn't something you can read in one go. That said this is an interesting read and I quite enjoyed this luminous, mournful ride.

Not for me, this one. This was not quite what I was expecting and as a result I didn't really it enjoy it much. The writing is heavily stylised, repetitious and undoubtedly quite poetic. It's also very atmospheric might lend itself for reading on long dark winter nights. However I found the stylised language distracting which in turn made it hard for me to work out who the characters were and what was going on. The narrative structure is clever but again, so clever that it bogged me down in Brunt Boggart. My conclusion is that I like my folk tales to be more straightforward.

A cool collection of fantasy short stories. There is a lot to love in this collection. I'll definitely be recommending it to patrons.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. This was a really fun book of tales. I enjoyed it very much and the take the author took with each one.