Brother

By: Ania Ahlborn

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

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 what's buried in the Morrows' backyard.

But 19-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....

©2015 Ania Ahlborn (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"This relentlessly grim tale is most definitely not for the squeamish, but it's nearly impossible to put down." ( Publishers Weekly)

Guilty Pleasure

I'm a little embarrassed to say that I enjoyed this book. Violent and predictable as it was I still remained interested. Right after the first bit of over the top violence I thought about returning it but just like a scary movie I got hooked and had to know what was coming next. The writing was better than one usually gets with this type of book and the reader did a good job of conveying the terror without over acting. Give it a shot if you like violent books. If you don't like it (or become disappointed with yourself for liking it) you can always blame me.

Very dark

This was not quite what I expected. But once I start, I like to finish a book. This was a lot more dark than I was expecting. No happy endings here!

Whoa!!!

Whoa!! Whoooooa!!! These are some very bad people! Very bad! If you are even the least bit squeamish, do not attempt this book. Seriously, baaaaaad people!

Extremely graphic.

Narrator, Paul Boehmer was good.

Disturbing and terrifying

The characters are so real and well written I simply couldn’t put this down! Highly suggest this book

twisted

it had a good twist the story was told well the characters well developed its enough oh my god mixed with a good story.tp keep me going

Truly twisted

This book had many twists and turns. Characters are truly disturbed. I really enjoyed the way it was written. Great job!

wth!!!

First, the narrator is fabulous! Second, wth! this is probably one of the more disturbing stories I have listened to, but I was hooked!

Horrible narration.

I will never listen to another book narrated by this guy. I’ve listened to a LOT, he was by far the worst. Unfortunately, it’s tied to my rating. The story was pretty darn good, intense though.

Amazing

I didn’t want this book to end. It takes a lot for me to write a review but oh my god this was great.

If you're into this kind of thing

Having read "Deliverance," "Open Season," and countless other novels about depraved hillbillies, I was curious about "Brother."
Having read (listened to) "Brother," I can say: I was satisfied with the experience.

It's a little convoluted, and what's ostensibly intended as foreshadowing usually turns out telegraphing exactly what twists are to come.
But it was a satisfying reading experience.
If this is already the type of book you like, I think you will find your reading experience satisfying, or at worst, satisfactory.

I knocked a point off the Overall score for some really poor editing, in the text as well as the audiobook.
This is the third book I've read by Ania Ahlborn, and I think it's my favorite yet, but the issue of editing is persistent through them all.
In one, possibly her first horror novel, every time someone tilted their head to the side, they "canted their head."
And boy oh boy, could the characters in that book ever cant their heads!

Ahlborn's novels come across like started out writing fanfiction, then at some point she began writing novels for publication by major publishing houses, but the quality of her writing stayed at the level of fanfiction for several books.
More power to her, nothing wrong with learning by doing.

The narration by Paul Boehmer has a "Vincent Price" quality, along with long, random pauses, which left the impression that he and I were both reading this book for the first time.
All that being said, I think the narration could have been a solid 4 with better editing.