Brood

Brood
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Borrow
Source: Copy courtesy of Bookbridgr

Adam and Alice where conceived using a fertility treatment, a treatment that turned their parents into cannibals. Now Alice and Adam are reaching the age where other children conceived by the same means, have started to turn feral. The twins are taking steps to stop puberty hitting so they won't go the same way as their parents, but will they be able to stave it off forever? Their Aunt Cynthia has taken them and has refurbished the home their parents turned in to a dungeon of sorts, she's determined to help them get over the psychological trauma she feels they have endured due to their parents actions, and all she wants to do is show them love. As symptoms start to present themselves on the twins, the twins frequently disappear from home, leaving their aunt worrying. They're involved with a group, a group of kids just like them, but kids from this group are going missing, being kidnapped. Cynthia is doing everything in her power to get the kids to behave, but she just can't control them. What's she going to do when the twins make that final leap over the edge.

I haven't read the first book unfortunately, but I found that this could probably stand alone, I got a grasp on what had previously happened quite early on, and understood the background and such. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the book. It was suitably dark and creepy, I mean the atmosphere and the vibes spilled off the page. I think the part I enjoyed most was the atmosphere and the world being created by the author. It was the right kind of dark and creepy, not too dark and creepy, but enough to give you that little feeling when you're reading a....welll....dark and creepy book ya know.

For me, I felt like the different POV's made the story very jerky and fragmented. I felt like it didn't really work, and there where a whole load of loose ends that where annoyingly left flapping there in the breeze. Dennis and Bree for instance. Like....what happened to the poor girl? I'm gathering he killed her but why? There was no need for him to. It was all ominous like "she won't leave the apartment" but I'm kinda curious as to why. She did what he wanted, sort of. Not to mention her friends who came to rescue her, what the hell happened to them!? Rodolfo and his gang scattered off in to the world with no more word or follow up to what happened to them. I'm not entirely opposed to being left in the dark if there's enough info that you can draw your own conclusions as to what's happened, but that's not the case with this. I know, I know, there's probably going to be a third book, which is why we leave the twins as we do, but still. It felt like things where being forgotten or just left in the dust of the story.

While I did enjoy the darkness and the creepiness and the horror of it all, I did find it hard to get in to the book, if I left it for example, I found it hard to get back in stride, and I did find myself a smidge bored once or twice, but I can't deny the premise is fairly unique, and certainly intriguing, I am curious about what happens to the twins next! I've had a look at the reviews for the first book, and it would appear that while the first book was very strong, the sequel hasn't quite lived up to what it should have been or was expected to be. None the less, curiosity will abound as to the fate of the twins.

I had this the other day with another book I was reading, Timebomb, I think it was, and it's present again here, the coincidences....there's just so many and it's all so unlikely I can't get behind or believe it at all. It kind of annoyed me because it felt quite a weak attempt to wrap everything up and get the story moving on to set up the third book.

I had problems with the characters. Maybe it's because I didn't read the first book I don't know, but I found Alice to be incredibly annoying, rude, disrespectful and incredibly ungrateful to her aunt. Yeah she saved her aunt but she was a right little bitch to her the majority of the time, running off and so on.  I didn't particularly like her. I didn't really have much of an opinion on Adam, I thought he was okay seeing as he called Cynthia mum and everything, but just feeling bad wasn't enough really. Clearly he can't stand up to his sister, and went along with whatever she said or did. He felt bad but he didn't do anything about it which was quite infuriating. Then there was Cynthia. I actually felt really sorry for her the majority of the time because she was trying so hard and the kids didn't want to know, well Alice didn't, and they where constantly worrying her. But at the same time, she was almost annoyingly whiny at some points.

Cynthia was also quite boring a lot of the time, we frequently returned to her sitting there doing nothing waiting for the kids to come back, or writing in her diary or whatever. The author did do very well at showing the contrast between human behaviour and the more animal behaviour of the kids going feral.

For me Brood wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be, it was dark and creepy as promised, but I couldn't gel with the characters and the narrative, with the switching and everything was very jerky. Having said that I am curious about what's going to happen to the twins next! I'm hoping there's a third book anyways.