Brother

I really enjoyed this book, it was very well written.It’s a sad story for all involved in different ways, has a lot of twists, the characters are well thought out, and I loved the way it gave you the reasons slowly through flash backs in the story, I couldn’t put it down

I went into this book thinking it was splatterpunk, and it really isn't. Still, it was an engaging read, with a really good balance of gore, tension, and psychological horror. Michael's character, conflicted but bound by family ties and pitted against older brother Rebel, was solid and I was really rooting for him throughout. There seemed to be a few inconsistencies in the timeline, but other than that the plot was tight, driven by Rebel's intricately woven plan and determination to witness Michael crumble.

I would say, without providing any spoilers, the book is good up until the last chapter, the ending is very rushed like the author just wanted to get the book finished

Incredibly bold and brave horror writing. Uncomfortable from start to finish, but that's what true horror should be. Brutal. I finished this and put every book by this author on my wishlist.

A nice horror read that has you taking in the sheer hatefulness and horror that fills the book from beginning to end. Michael becomes a part of the family and brought up with the morrows ways. Only Michael has other ideas and empathy towards those hurt. But he can't go against the family, otherwise his life would be over. A descent read that keeps you entertained. Would recommend.

Really enjoyed this book slow burner, picked up the last 4 chapters..didn’t see the plot twist coming. Felt this could have been a series as the characters were so detailed

I found this book very predictable that I couldn't fully enjoy the twist but it is very well written and a good story regardless. I definitely recommend this to anyone with a strong stomach and a love of horror

Brother has ruined me for other horror novels. This was the piece de resistance of extreme. Darker than a 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%

Despite the title, I absolutely loved this book. I always look for books that I can't put down and get excited to read. This was one of those! I won't spoil it for anyone, but the only thing I hated was the ending. It was very well written and suspenseful.

Story that is very different from what you usually read. Disgust mixed with suspense mixed with terror.

This one is about a murderous, cannibal family. Yeah! it's a lot of fun. But the author also weaves an engrossing story in all that gore. A story that comes together in the end & leaves your jaw on the floor. Good one.👍

I knew the premise of this book going in. It's no spoiler to say this book centers on a character, Michael, who is a member of a family of serial killers and that the story hinges on his struggle to reconcile his own thoughts with what his family does. As such, I expected a bloody and violent horror story. In that, I wasn't disappointed, but I'm immeasurably pleased that the book, while it is violent, while it is bloody, while it does have plenty of extreme horror, is also a surprisingly deep and often moving character study.The writing is simple and concise enough to fade into the background and allow the reader to fully immerse him/herself in a story that's gripping from beginning to end, both during scenes of truly horrific violence and during introspective interludes. But it's the psychology behind the story that really makes it shine. You will find yourself experiencing a lot of conflicting emotions as you struggle to reconcile the different sides of characters whose motivations are not always immediately clear (to the reader and sometimes even to themselves).Upon finishing this book, I found myself thinking about two of history's great thinkers. Tolstoy observed that all happy families are alike but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own unique way. Nowhere is that more explicitly on display than in the relationships between the family members in this book. What's particularly horrifying is that, though the acts of violence depicted are likely alien to the vast majority of readers, I suspect many of us see hints of our own familial dysfunction beneath the surface of these characters. The idea that characters whose acts are so monstrous bear any similarity to ourselves and our own families is terrifying, and that terror is at the heart of what makes this book so stunning and, indeed, haunting. You'll likely find these characters keep creeping back into your thoughts from time to time long after you've finished reading it.And then there's Aristotle, who told us that the endings of stories should seem simultaneously surprising and inevitable. And, moving on to a discussion of plot (as opposed to character), that's certainly what we find here. I won't spoil anything, but I will say that I was genuinely surprised by some of this book's turns, and often felt that they were SO inevitable that I should have seen them coming. That I didn't is a testament to the book's ability to pull the reader in. The author seems to have a magician's skill at misdirection, and the reader always feels on shaky ground when it comes to predicting the book's outcome. Admittedly, I got about a chapter ahead of the author on just a few of the twists and turns, but I was nevertheless both surprised and satisfied by most of the plot.I'll be the first to acknowledge that this isn't the book for everyone. Those of us who prefer "quieter" (or at least less bloody and extreme) horror could easily feel overwhelmed by some of the things that happen in this book, even if the focus is more on character than on the acts of violence themselves. That having been said, if you have the stomach for the more extreme scenes, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

This is probably my favourite book i have read this year. I still think about the ending