Twenty years ago, the mysterious death of his aunt left Aaron Holbrook orphaned and alone. He abandoned his rural Arkansas hometown vowing never to return, until his seven-year-old son died in an accident, plunging Aaron into a nightmare of addiction and grief. Desperate to reclaim a piece of himself, he returns to the hills of his childhood, to Holbrook House, where he hopes to find peace among the memories of his youth. But solace doesn’t come easy. Someone—or something—has other plans.
Like Aaron, Holbrook House is but a shell of what it once was, a target for vandals and ghost hunters who have nicknamed it “the devil’s den.” Aaron doesn’t believe in the paranormal—at least, not until a strange boy begins following him wherever he goes. Plagued by violent dreams and disturbing visions, Aaron begins to wonder if he’s losing his mind. But a festering darkness lurks at the heart of Holbrook House…a darkness that grins from within the shadows, delighting in Aaron’s sorrow, biding its time.
Book Review Blog: The Bird Eater
I was “introduced” to author Ania Ahlborn by the praise her book, Brother, garnered. However, for some reason or another, I opted to read another one of her books, Within These Walls, first. Although I was not head over heels about ‘Walls,’ her writing impressed me enough to want to read more from this writer – enter, Brother, which completely blew me away and cemented Ahlborn as one of my favorite writers. A bold statement, but did I speak too soon?
The Bird Eater is my third Ania Ahlborn book, and I knew that to surpass my feelings on what I thought about Brother would be a feat tough to overcome. But, I had complete faith in Ahlborn’s capabilities, which was proved within the first chapter of The Bird Eater, where I had a hard time putting the book down and cursed my eyes when my eyelids drooped from being tired. The book’s introduction caught me off guard when, in the first chapter, it went in a direction I was not expecting. It was a pleasant surprise that whacked me upside the head. I was all in.
Our main protagonist, Aaron Holbrook, suffered a tragedy in his early teens and then another as an adult that put his life spiraling downward. As an adult, Aaron inherits his childhood home, and, as luck would have it, it is also the home where the first significant tragedy of his life occurred. At the advice of his therapist, Aaron returns “home” to Arkansas to face the tragic events of his past – the one before the more recent tragedy, that is. He sees this as an opportunity to prove to his estranged wife that he can overcome the bottle and pick up the pieces to put his life back together. This “new” home serves as a new lease on life and Aaron is determined to renovate the place back to its glory and win back his wife. Needless to say, there are a few hiccups along the way, and the journey to sobriety and redemption is not as easy as he thought.
Being back in Arkansas, much to his delight (and dismay), his old high school friends never got out of town, and he rekindles bonds with an old friend, Eric, and a long lost “love” Cheri who is now unhappily married to a beefy, larger than life metalhead. How inconvenient for poor Aaron! But, fear not, as Cheri still has feelings her Aaron, even after having disappeared from her life for twenty years. Talk about commitment! Once in town, a young boy harasses him and is seemingly everywhere Aaron goes. At this point in the book, I am still intrigued. There is a mystery afoot! Who is this kid that is tormenting Aaron, and why?! To add insult to injury, his former home, now known as the Holbrook House, has developed a morbid reputation for being haunted.
It wasn’t until just slightly over the halfway point that my interest started to wane as Ahlborn continued to use the same anecdotes one too many times for my liking. There are only so many times you can use crazed crows bashing into closed doors and windows (tell that to Hitchcock). The ruse became tired and ineffective. The story took a dip and felt like an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 with Aaron, now in full “emo” mode, who couldn’t make up his mind about anything, and his indecisions, lack of action, and inactions became, frankly, tiresome and annoying. The story lost its focus and became a cluttered mess that had me rooting for no one in particular as I had a hard time liking any of the characters. Yes, our main character, Aaron, was damaged, and that was set up from the get-go, while Ahlborn continued to exemplify his dark descent, it still felt too abrupt when it came to full fruition.
While I was not a big fan of The Bird Eater, I am still a fan of Ahlborn’s writing as it is easy to follow, but, much like how I felt with Within These Walls, the story was lacking and could not keep me engaged through to the end. The familiar tropes are used with no significant effect and do nothing to add anything new. The old childhood home that is the talk of the town and believed to be haunted, friends still stuck in a run-down town incapable of escape, a childhood love, a man with a tragic history seeking redemption – I’ve seen it all before. This is not to say that I disliked everything about this book. I did enjoy a good portion of the book, that is until I lost interest in the main character’s plight. Ahlborn’s description of the Holbrook House painted a picture of a place not to be reckoned with but also a place that I would love to have meandered through as a youth, being abandoned with a morbid history and all. So while, for the most part, she got the creepy setting and the feel of small-town Americana right, the surrounding story, while starting strong, just didn’t work for me and fell flat.