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A review by the_coycaterpillar_reads
Brother by Ania Ahlborn
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Brother has ruined me for other horror novels. This was the piece de resistance of extreme. Darker than a motherfucking black hole.
To say I have a soft spot for horror stories that push against the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable in modern literature is an understatement. For this reason, I have been getting into extreme horror lately in a big way. It’s the kind of story that ends up like a sticky spiderweb – you turn and get trapped further, the spider a never-ending threat that pushes further on the edge of your peripheral vision. It stalks you slowly, ramping up the fear and the anticipation. That is exactly how I see extreme horror.
Brother is one such book that evoked all the emotions from me. As soon as I finished the book, I had considered throwing it across the room due to how it was left. I felt angry, shocked, annoyed, I felt it all. I will always rate a book 5 stars that is able to exude that kind of emotion from me as a reader. I felt destroyed. I was walking around the house aimlessly, not knowing what to do next. I knew I couldn’t have started another book, but I didn’t know what to do either. I read this as a buddy read with anna_reads_horror on tik Tok and I could barely wait for her to finish so we could talk about it. I felt unhinged!
So, Brother…out in the West Virginia sticks live the Morrow family. They are a family with secrets. Bloody ones. Micheal wants to break free of their bloody secrets. He isn’t like the rest. Maybe because he isn’t. The Morrow family took Micheal as a three-year-old boy and brought him up like their own. They taught him to hunt and prepare a carcass for butchering. The things that that prepared him for doing was diabolical.
One thing this book does incredibly well is the examination of Nurture vs. nature. Is a killer made or born? In Brother’s case it is certainly nurtured into one. Micheal was only a baby when he was taken from his family. He is surrounded by bloodlust predominately from his mother and his brother Reb.
Now, Reb is a different beast entirely. He is sadistic, calculated and hates his adoptive brother Micheal. He does things to Micheal that only a psychopath would be capable of. Adding someone of my comments during the buddy read to show just how this made me feel at different points –
‘Momma liked her girls young’ urgh, I’ve a really bad feeling 13%
‘Why do you think your family left you outside. They don’t want you no more’ 14%
‘OMG just imagine if that firework had gone off in his hands. 30%
‘He yearned to touch her, but the idea of doing it while she was breathing scared him.’ URGH 43%
‘a party aint a party without a splash of red’ OH NO 77%
To say I have a soft spot for horror stories that push against the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable in modern literature is an understatement. For this reason, I have been getting into extreme horror lately in a big way. It’s the kind of story that ends up like a sticky spiderweb – you turn and get trapped further, the spider a never-ending threat that pushes further on the edge of your peripheral vision. It stalks you slowly, ramping up the fear and the anticipation. That is exactly how I see extreme horror.
Brother is one such book that evoked all the emotions from me. As soon as I finished the book, I had considered throwing it across the room due to how it was left. I felt angry, shocked, annoyed, I felt it all. I will always rate a book 5 stars that is able to exude that kind of emotion from me as a reader. I felt destroyed. I was walking around the house aimlessly, not knowing what to do next. I knew I couldn’t have started another book, but I didn’t know what to do either. I read this as a buddy read with anna_reads_horror on tik Tok and I could barely wait for her to finish so we could talk about it. I felt unhinged!
So, Brother…out in the West Virginia sticks live the Morrow family. They are a family with secrets. Bloody ones. Micheal wants to break free of their bloody secrets. He isn’t like the rest. Maybe because he isn’t. The Morrow family took Micheal as a three-year-old boy and brought him up like their own. They taught him to hunt and prepare a carcass for butchering. The things that that prepared him for doing was diabolical.
One thing this book does incredibly well is the examination of Nurture vs. nature. Is a killer made or born? In Brother’s case it is certainly nurtured into one. Micheal was only a baby when he was taken from his family. He is surrounded by bloodlust predominately from his mother and his brother Reb.
Now, Reb is a different beast entirely. He is sadistic, calculated and hates his adoptive brother Micheal. He does things to Micheal that only a psychopath would be capable of. Adding someone of my comments during the buddy read to show just how this made me feel at different points –
‘Momma liked her girls young’ urgh, I’ve a really bad feeling 13%
‘Why do you think your family left you outside. They don’t want you no more’ 14%
‘OMG just imagine if that firework had gone off in his hands. 30%
‘He yearned to touch her, but the idea of doing it while she was breathing scared him.’ URGH 43%
‘a party aint a party without a splash of red’ OH NO 77%
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Blood, Cannibalism, and Death of parent