Brother: A Tame Disappoinment

Brother by Ania Ahlborn
Genres: Horror
Pages: 319
Goodreads

From the bestselling horror author of Within These Walls and The Bird Eater comes a terrifying novel that follows a teenager determined to break from his family’s unconventional—and deeply disturbing—traditions.

Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it’s served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don’t knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what’s buried in the Morrows’ backyard.

But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. When he meets Alice, a pretty girl working at a record shop in the small nearby town of Dahlia, he’s immediately smitten. For a moment, he nearly forgets about the monster he’s become. But his brother, Rebel, is all too eager to remind Michael of his place…

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This will be quick because I just don’t have that much to say about it.

With how much people talked about this book being gory or fucked up, I really expected more. Maybe I just watch too many horror movies, or listen to too much true crime, but this book was rather tame compared to what I expected it to be. I went into this expecting more of a Hills Have Eyes or Texas Chainsaw Massacre or 1000 Corpses vibe. Instead, it was a slightly gory-er version of a lifetime movie with a whiney, weak, main character that really got on my nerves.

Look, I’m not saying their family issues and extra-curricular activities weren’t totally fucked up, they were – but this novel was such a bore even with murder for sport as one of the main plot points. None of that is really fully explained, by the way. Why do they kill girls? Who knows. Why do they all have to look a certain way? Beats me.

Having a main character that was so weak and pathetic didn’t help its case and frankly, I just don’t understand why he didn’t try to get away long ago. There was nothing actually keeping him from leaving besides his own fear. Adding insult to injury, he isn’t a child. I actually thought he was a child when I started reading – but no, he is a full-blown adult that acts like he is a teenager with all the teen angst.

All this whining and moping and slow plot was made absolutely unbearable when the big reveal happened in what I assume the author thought was subtle foreshadowing, but actually made everything really fucking obvious (pardon my French). It would have been a great twist at the end, if not for that one specific scene that really just threw all of the mystery out the damn window. Ugh.

Honestly, that’s all I really have to say about this book. A lot of it is really forgettable. This felt like a short story that dragged on for almost 10 hours (I listened to the audiobook version). The characters were forgettable, the motivations were nonexistent, and the mystery was robbed midway through. The only reason I gave this book an extra star is because of the ending – I enjoyed how Ahlborn “wrapped” it up. Spoiler alert: it’s a bit of a cliffhanger.