Helpful Score: 3
Pretty gross, although i was intriged about Elizabeth Bathory to see what really happened, i stop reading the book half-way through it. Very graphic. sick and twisted. do not read if you cant handle blood and guts and touture
Helpful Score: 3
I initially heard about this book on NPR; the author, a regular contributor himself, was being interviewed. This is most definitely NOT my usual fare, however, the writing is great and apparently well-researched. Not for the squeamish, to put it mildly.
Helpful Score: 2
Wow, I'd put this in the "car crash" category...It's terrible & awful gory stuff, but you can't turn away from it. I finished it in 3 days. Not for the squeamish!
Helpful Score: 1
Gory & Wonderful.
Helpful Score: 1
It's an okay book. It's not the best I've ever read, but it's okay. The subject is gruesome.
Helpful Score: 1
not for minors to read.Very explict passages. Frightings that she was real.
Helpful Score: 1
A great historial view of the Countess.
Helpful Score: 1
Intresting historial fiction on Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory. Re-tells her story in accordance of her distant nephew who is being charged for his ancestor's murders of countless virgins. Although Elizabeth Bathory was an actual person, this book is based on what knowlege is known of her rein and not considered a non-fiction book. Still a very good book. Recommended for those who also enjoy Anne Rice, or vampire subject matter.
Helpful Score: 1
I thought it was terrible and buried in details.
Helpful Score: 1
Vampire novel based on the real-life Countess of Bathory. Historical vampire fiction.
Helpful Score: 1
A most unusual book...disturbing to say the least. It's not a book to be read before going to sleep!
Helpful Score: 1
Would make a great movie!
Helpful Score: 1
This is a different read for my normal styles, but it left me feeling that some people have an imagination unknown to the modern world. Definately a good read if you like vampires.
Helpful Score: 1
Wow, this book was really good, yet the ending lacked something. The book goes seamlessly back and forth between the past Countess Bathory and present day Count Bathory. I really loved how Codrescu got inside the characters minds. The part about the notorious Blood Countess went into depth from her childhood, and how she became the psychopathic sadist who gained sexual pleasure from causing pain. I didn't feel he did as well with the story of the modern day Count, though. The ending should have lasted another 100 pages, rather than one chapter. The book built up to a climax then just stopped, which I found to be a major mistake. It built up to the Countess' murder of hundreds of women then just mentioned a few things in just the last chapter. I was quite disappointed in that, as I found the book to be excellent until the weak ending. I should put in a warning, though, as this book is not for young readers or for those who get offended easily.
This Gothic historical fiction had too much horror for me. Nightmarish if you like this sort of read.
A little history, a little gore, a little love - good read.
Interesting. Sexual Content.
Engrossing story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary who bathed in the blood of 650 virgins in her quest for eternal youth and immortality.
lovely, heartbreaking, gory, 16th century psycopath
Supposedly a historical novel about Elizabeth Bathory.
The book is framed in the context of a courtroom confession of a man (Bathory's descendant) who is explaining to a judge why he turned himself in for supposedly killing a woman - but why it was justified. (Possession by the spirit of the evil murdering Bathory, but things went wrong).
But it doesn't work, because not even with the furthest stretch of the imagination can one imagine a judge sitting there listening to all this crap.
The book is divided between this courtroom-story, and the "story" of Bathory herself, which makes not even the slightest attempt to be historical. Instead, it's an incredibly trashy S&M fantasy kinda thing. Which would be all fine and well, except it simultaneously manages to be boring, slow-moving, and not-at-all-hot.
Oh well. Not recommended.
The book is framed in the context of a courtroom confession of a man (Bathory's descendant) who is explaining to a judge why he turned himself in for supposedly killing a woman - but why it was justified. (Possession by the spirit of the evil murdering Bathory, but things went wrong).
But it doesn't work, because not even with the furthest stretch of the imagination can one imagine a judge sitting there listening to all this crap.
The book is divided between this courtroom-story, and the "story" of Bathory herself, which makes not even the slightest attempt to be historical. Instead, it's an incredibly trashy S&M fantasy kinda thing. Which would be all fine and well, except it simultaneously manages to be boring, slow-moving, and not-at-all-hot.
Oh well. Not recommended.
adult content, very graphically violent re-created historical accounts. I didn't read the whole thing.
i didn't read it
