Beth's Bookshelf

It’s not often I find myself wishing I could erase my mind of a book in order to have the experience of reading it again for the first time. I haven’t actually found a book like that in a while. That was true until I read Ania Ahlborn’s “Brother.” I was entranced from the very first page and had a tough time putting it down.

“Brother” centers on a family living in Appalachia with a murderous agenda. They spend their days finding marks, usually hitchhiking women or the like, planning out how to hunt them down, and taking them home. There, these women are tortured, killed, and disposed of. Michael, the youngest of the Marrow family, does not enjoy this lifestyle. In fact, he just wants to find a way out for him and his sister. He’s taken it upon himself to keep her as safe as he can, both from all the horror in their lives and from Momma.

Things change quickly for Michael when he and his brother, Rebel, meet two girls working at the record store in the nearest town. Readers watch Michael’s priorities change and learn more about the family history as the story progresses.

As I read this book, I became increasingly aware of something awful about to happen. You know that things have to take a turn. You just know. I felt like I was turning each page, waiting for it to happen, wondering when it would finally do the bad thing. Ania Ahlborn is fantastic at creating this kind of suspense. She gives you a crumb and then another and then another, but never the whole piece of bread. Right up until the exact moment it dawns on the main character, you don’t know when it will happen. You just know that you know a little more than he does. Michael doesn’t expect the outcome, but the readers know that this isn’t the sort of book where you get to hang onto hope.

I don’t know anyone else who has read this book yet and I am dying to talk about it! I may have ruined it for a friend of mine simply because I needed to tell somebody how I was feeling. It was like gossiping about a crime. She’s still going to read the book because it’s right up her alley in terms of content. I know I can’t recommend this book to everyone in my life because not everyone wants to read about Appalachian murder families, but if you fall into that category of loving novels about family horror, this is definitely something you need to pick up.