Reviews with content warning for Child death - Vértestvérek

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Vértestvérek by Ania Ahlborn

97 reviews

theserendipitousreader_'s review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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dragonbloom's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really liked this book. The ending was a little too much for me, I suppose, whilst the foreshadowing for everything was all there... I don't see why Alice had to die, seems a little too much, felt rude.

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Incest, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Misogyny

Minor: War

Abuse: Lots of abuse. The mother emotionally and physically abuses the family, especially the daughters. The father is less abusive, but still abusive, and certainly doesn't stop the mother. The brother abuses the main character. Alcoholism/alcohol: The main character's brother is an alcoholic. Animal Death/cruelty: Several animals are killed throughout the plot. Hunting and pets.

In the backstory chapters, Rebel kills a dog, quickly. This dog is explicitly stated to be neglected. Lauralynn keeps rabbits, one of which is killed, the others released. The rabbits were well taken care of until this point. Whilst hunting, Rebel tears the wing off a bird, dooming it to a slow, painful death.

All of these incidents come up again. Blood: It's a very violent book. Cannibalism: The family seem to eat the people they kill, and at one point there is graphic description of the MC preparing a body. Child death:

The mother kills Lauralynn.

Confinement: The family kidnap and torture girls. Incest: Incest is a running theme in the book.

The main character's adoptive sister tries to have sex with him, twice, whilst he is blatantly uncomfortable. It is fairly obvious, but the MC's love interest turns out to be his sister. Disturbing, though it never goes further than kissing in either case. Finally, the MC kisses and gropes what later turns out to be his mother's dead body, though he didn't know this at the time. It is revealed that the mother was molested by her father. The same man later molests Lauralynn.

Kidnapping: This is discovered early on, but

the main character turns out not to be blood related to the family, he was kidnapped, though he is not aware he was kidnapped until much later in the book.

The family also kidnap and torture girls before killing them. Misogyny: The family kills exclusively young girls and women. Rebel sometimes expresses misogynistic viewpoints. Necrophilia: This isn't on storygraph's list, but I feel like I should mention it.

MC is a necrophile. I don't believe he has engaged in full intercourse with corpses, but he expresses attraction to them, and at one point gropes one.

Sexual violence/rape:

Rebel rapes a woman after portraying himself as being her friend. Less violently, a woman comes onto the main character twice, after he attempts to get her to back off.

Torture: The family torture girls. Occasionally animals. War: The main character's father is a Vietnam veteran.

dannybrown59's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wow the ending of this book was like a punch to my heart. Despite all the horrible things Michael did you really feel for his character. He didn't deserve what happened to him. I just wanted him to escape and move on with his life.

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alvyv's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

First book i’ve read in the horror genre. It was pretty well written, and made me want to finish it till the end.

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chaimasg93's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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archaicrobin's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

This is the second novel I’ve read by Ania Ahlborn and like the first novel, Within These Walls, I completely hated it. I like to give authors three chances, if I’m let down three times I give up and deem them as just not for me. Unfortunately, I don’t think I ever want to read another book by Ania Ahlborn, after two I am so infuriated I can’t even explain how much I absolutely hated this novel.

You follow a stupid loser named Michael who is written like he’s 14 but later is revealed to be 20?!!! And his twisted, annoying, stereotypical “psycho” family that likes to hunt and eat women I guess? Not really clear on that, the book doesn’t even explain why they kill women, or why they eat them after, or anything really. Apparently Mama was sexually abused as a child so obviously she has to be an abusive mother that likes to murder young women and eat them. Like what else would she do, am I right?

So you follow Michael and his “brother” Rebel, Ray, Rufus, who fucking knows. I listened to the audiobook and this character has about 5 nicknames and it took me 2 hours to realize they’re all the same person. Michael and Rebel are supposed to kidnap women and bring them back for their mother to kill so she doesn’t kill her own daughters?? I can’t even write a synopsis that makes sense because this book MAKES NO SENSE.

The story is boring, the characters are either 2 dimensional or so fucking annoying you’re praying they all just die so you don’t have to listen to their repetitive internal monologues anymore. If you took out Micheals repetitive thoughts the book would probably be only 100 pages, which it should be BECAUSE NOTHING HAPPENS.

I always try to find something positive with every reading experience but right now I’m just angry. If I hadn’t picked this one for a reading challenge I would have returned it immediately. But now here I am, 9 hours later and with absolutely nothing to show for it. Some people really love this book, I am not one of them. I found it boring, uninteresting, stupid, stereotypical, nonsensical, and insulting. In fact if I physically owned a copy of this book I would throw it off my balcony.

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errantdreams's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ania Ahlborn’s horror novel Brother is just fantastic! 19-year-old Michael is quiet and obedient. His abusive older brother Reb is his “best friend.” He was adopted, but at this point he fits into the family pretty well. He butchers the bodies that his mother the serial killer provides: young women who won’t be missed. One day Reb takes him to a record store where his girlfriend Lucy works, and shy Michael is captivated by Lucy’s friend and co-worker, Alice. Reb seems determined to set the two of them up, but how could Michael engage in any kind of “normal” relationship when all he’s ever known is chaos, abuse, and death?

Two time periods unfurl in parallel: the years surrounding Reb’s collection of Michael as though he were a pet, and the present. It really focuses on the disparate ways in which abuse and childhood surroundings shape different people in different ways. Reb is cruel, manipulative, and devious. Michael, on the other hand, is meek, quiet, and obedient. Their sisters, Lauralynn and Misty Dawn, are treated even worse than the boys and have their own ways of trying to cope. It’s easy to see Michael as the victim, bullied and threatened into going along with what his family wants him to do. I mean, if he’s locked in with a corpse until he butchers it, he really doesn’t have much choice, does he? But when he starts to think for himself, it has to leave you wondering, why couldn’t he do this before everything went to hell? There are no easy answers. He’s in an entirely untenable situation.

The characterizations are fantastic. Momma’s a serial killer, Wade (their dad) is an enabler, Reb is psychotic, unpredictable, and clearly a serial-killer-in-training. Misty Dawn just wants to listen to her music and avoid Momma’s wrath; she asks Michael to bring her jewelry from the corpses. Reb and Michael spend much of their time finding suitable victims for Momma, which is a twist on the serial killer genre that I haven’t seen before.

This family is as dysfunctional as it gets, and Michael’s journey through it is absolutely fantastic. There are no easy answers in this horror story.

Content note: Slurs, molestation, graphic animal harm/death, a bit of gore, a touch of necrophilia, and cannibalism.

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