Quite odd at times. I found it hard to find the right pacing.
The story is interesting. There are a few "Oh" moments to leave you scratching your head.
Once you find a good pace, it becomes a faster read.

The storyline is more of the “choose the worst evil” than the good vs evil we’ve come to expect. I’m pretty jaded when it comes to horror books but this one waws one of my top horror reads for the year. I read it in a single day and it lived in my mind for weeks after.

Mothers Boys by Daniel I. Russel was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. I had never read this author before but I will be looking out for his materials after reading this. Mothers Boys is an old school, non-stop, action type book that keeps the reader turning the pages, not skimming due to boring dialogue that seems to be a thing nowadays. The storyline is not even good vs evil, more a deplorable vs ore deplorable and the reader needs to choose who they want to survive, the monsters or the crappy humans who were in all the headlines in 2014 when this book was released. If you like your horror book to be actually horrific, give this book a read.

This was a wonderfully done horror novel, it had everything that I was looking for in the horror genre. The characters were wonderfully done and enjoyed the overall feel of them in this book. It worked well and was glad I got to read this and hope to read more from Daniel I Russell.

If you are looking for a “disgusting/gore horror”- horror book, "Mother's Boys" is an okay choice.
If you are sensitive to very strong violence against women, hands off.

The story is straight-forward and does not come with too many surprises.
It switches between being super brutal and very disgusting.
The disgust is caused by the environment, the sewers, and the misogynistic thoughts of a gang, that murders and rapes women for fun.
The "good" characters are comprehensible. The bad characters are just bad and repellent.
To me, the book misses atmosphere.
Although, it was interesting to read a "being-hunted-in-the-sewers" story in which you really, really just want the “lurking evil” to torture the humans to death.
Admittedly, this somewhat killed the tension in the last third of the book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

A well-developed splatterpunk novel, this book is a really wild ride from start to finish, although it does feel somewhat underdeveloped in places. None of the characters are particularly well fleshed out, but the development comes in from the story and the action itself. It's so fast-paced that it feels a bit out of place in terms of the things that happen so quickly, and some with little to no explanation.

I did appreciate that this book did its utmost to think outside the box, and to give something that you don't often see. New concepts are integral to horror, and it was good to see a book that did something totally left field. I did think this was a fabulous book conceptually - I just wish that it was extrapolated on a bit more to be more than just a concept.

Hoping to see more in future in this sort of vein, but with just a little bit more development and heart in the characters.

Mother’s Boys by Daniel I. Russell is a gruesome, gritty ride that tests the boundaries of extreme horror. If you're a fan of underground mutant tales mixed with psychopathic gangs, this book will pull you in—and not let go!

The story follows Natalie, who’s always prided herself on being different. But when she witnesses a brutal murder and escapes into the sewers, she finds herself trapped between two deadly groups: sewer-dwelling mutants and a sadistic gang of murderers. The question of who to root for becomes more complex than you'd expect, and that’s part of the twisted fun of this book.

The opening is intense, and the violence is relentless, but if you can stomach it, the story delivers moments of both horror and unexpected heart. I appreciated the unique, if sometimes unbelievable, underground scenes (and trust me, you'll never forget that baby pram!). Russell does a great job creating memorable characters, though a few slip into cliché territory.

One of the most fascinating parts of this story is how it flips the typical horror script—forcing you to side with one of the groups, despite neither being truly "good." The sewer family of monstrous outcasts is strangely compelling, even as they commit horrific acts. Meanwhile, the above-ground gang is as vile as they come, making the eventual clash between these two groups both thrilling and gruesome.

While I had some issues with the motivations of the characters and a few underdeveloped changes in the later chapters, overall, Mother’s Boys is a wild, bloody ride. If you're into intense horror with dark, underground themes, this one’s for you!

#MothersBoys #DanielIRussell #HorrorFiction #ExtremeHorror #BookReview #GrimReads #UndergroundHorror

I have tried to read this book several times and have never succeeded. The entire first page is discussing the colour of someone's hair and it's terribly uninteresting. The sheer number of adjectives made me lose interest so quickly it became a DNF.

Interesting concept but the writing style is very much not for me.

Nat and Simon just wanted to spend their one year anniversary together. In the middle of their anniversary celebration, Simon gets an unwanted guest from his past. Johan and Simon used to be friends and they did horrible things together. Simon wants to forget and close the door now that he has Nat. But this night is going to change all of their paths, forever.

A woman is dead. Another is missing. A group of sadistic serial rapists and killers are on the hunt and have no idea that a group of sewer dwelling cannibalistic mutants want revenge just a much as they do. Nat is stuck in the middle of it all.

This book was fun! Gory and unsettling horror with a dash of sci-fi wrapped in layers of fast paced action. A book full of characters you love to hate and others you learn to love as you watch their stories play out.

Check your triggers: This book opens with a graphic and detailed sexual assault. It was uncomfortable but was a key part into understanding how vile some of the characters are.

The writing is well done but one thing I had a hard time with the consistent fat shaming of one of the characters. It has zero relevance to the story.

3.5 stars, rounding up to 4.

This is a novel with mostly bad people doing horrific things and, eventually, two distinct groups will stop at nothing to kill one another.

Above ground, a group of younger men kidnap, rape, and torture women for fun. It's as grim as it sounds. Their motivation seems to just be "because women are horrible".

In the sewer system beneath the city lives a family who are quite different. Although human, they are monsterous in their appearance and live below so nobody bothers them. They are killers and sometimes cannibals when they can't obtain food to eat. One communicates with birds, another is an extremely large Hulk-like man with a violent streak, and another is simply the most human looking and he begs for money and food to bring back to his brothers. There are others as well.

One night the group of women haters attack and kill an older prostitute. This is going to lead to a bloody revenge plan as these two groups will be hunting one another through the sewers.

Our main protagonist is caught up between these groups and she tries to keep the bloodshed to a minimum. But her boyfriend has dark secrets and this will also come into play.

The scenes of violence are pretty gruesome and the cat and mouse games in the sewers are claustrophobic and thrilling.

The main issue I had, personally, was with the motivations for these groups. We're meant to be on the side of the sewer family but there's really no clear reason for rooting on a group of murderous cannibals. "We get mocked" is basically it.

There are some changes in different characters later in the novel which, again, aren't really explained enough to warrant those changes.

That being said, if you're looking for a bloodily violent book with some extreme horror elements, I would recommend this book. There's more to like than not and once we get underground the action and suspense really kicks in.