Heide Piehler said in her review for School Library Journal that this novel will "appeal to readers who want an alternative to the grim realism of much contemporary fiction."

While Highway's treatment of his women characters is sympathetic and perhaps gentler than Tremblay's, their portrayal can only be described as gritty and grim realism.

After 1950 the series began to resemble the farcical Abbott and Costello comedies-a far cry from the grim social realism of their 1930s films.

In turning the play into a film, the fateful decision was made to pursue a grim, uncompromising realism that may be unprecedented for a nondocumentary film about the Holocaust.

The setting of his film suggests a grim, didactic social realism, but Mr. Doueiri infuses it with the giddy, sensuous sweetness of a pop song.

Baynton's short stories and novel display a grim realism and depiction of female suffering which represents an alternative view to the romanticism of the bush.

Second letter from Li to Mo, and Li's second story, Meat Boy, which he calls "grim realism".

But N.W.A. eased away from grim realism.

The grim social realism is difficult to reconcile with the light-hearted bohemianism of Mori's.

In many ways the most unusual comic book around is Harvey Pekar's "American Splendor," which abandons fantasy or humor for a picture of grim psychological realism.