ABR's full SickER Bastards audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

PRE-AUDIBLE RELEASE REVIEW

Fist off, if you do not know what you are getting into here, just stop. I mean it,if you do not want to be disgusted in more ways than I care to think of. Just. Stop. Right. Now. Please.

However, if you are like me and are search for audiobooks to darken your soul just by listening, SickER Bastards was made for you. Also this is the second book in a series that I didn’t know was a series until now. Make sure to start with the first book first.

OK, on to the story here. Sticking with the “Now and “Then” storytelling of Sick Bastards. Shaw is able to paint a picture of one man’s struggle with doing what is right by him of his fathers, yes more than one. Struggling with what is better, living a lie you know and being miserable or living his way out of the lie to be happy.

Shaw didn’t disappoint with the opening “love”, loosly calling it that for lack of a better term, with sister and brother. Making my dig deep inside and ask, “WTF am I doing?” I am happy to say that the insestual scenes were much less, even though they were way more graphic and the last one was a little extra disturbing.

In SickER Bastards there was a much larger appearance of zombie-like creatures that I wish held a more spotlight role. Maybe Shaw will write a zombie novel, fingers crossed. Brother gets some revenge. I really liked all of his back story.

If you are able to look past the graphic sex scenes, Shaw has crafted a brilliantly scary post apocalyptic, sort of zombie, scare the crap out of you tale.

Chirs Barnes has become the voice of my nightmares. Seriously, I listen to audiobooks while going to sleep. You know some people read, well, I listen. I am not so sure that this was the best choice for a goodnight listen. My dreams were all from my perspective, but Mr. Nightmare, I mean Mr. Barnes was narrating it. Waking up more than once with a jerk and a WTF!

Seriously Barnes is one of, if not my top favorite horror narrator. His voice resonates down to my bones and freezes them. Slight vocal characterizations that some may not think are “different” enough, especially for the females. I don’t care, ever since High Moor, my ears have been in love. If it is horror and he is the performer I will buy it and you should too. Plain and simple.

Audiobook provided for review by the narrator. ( )

This book tries really hard to be sick and twisted. And it fails miserably. I've read sick and twisted, and this is not it, not by a long shot. But the author does try very hard. He's just not good at it.

The story begins with the "family" eating human flesh. As the son feasts on said flesh, he can't help but wonder what it would taste like, being eaten out of his sister's vagina. See? He's trying really hard, this Matt Shaw. The son even acts out that fantasy with his sister, a few pages later. And yes, if that was in fact his sister, that would be a bit twisted, I admit. But *spoiler alert* she's not his sister.

This "family" has apparently been assembled as part of a government experiment, or something. They all woke up in that house, not knowing who they were. They also woke up extremely horny. Supposedly, because of the drug cocktail that the government used to dose this family's drinking water. So there's incestious fucking going on all bloody day. Good times. But again, it's not really incestious.

The book cuts back and forth, between current time, and the before time. Before the son got in this situation. Back when he was living in his mom's basement. I saw many opportunities for the author to make it clear that this so-called "family" the son is currently involved with is in fact, his real family.

That would have been cool. I mean the only reason he's really fucking his fake sister and mother is that he knows they are fake. He's been to the military base. He knows the truth. So, if his memories finally did come flooding back, and he slowly realises that he's humping his dead real-mom's corpse... That would have been some good story telling right there. But noooooooooo.

So the problem with this book is really the fact that I'm writing a better story in my head while reading this pile of shit. That's not my job, goddamnit. It's the author's fucking job. So get it right next time, you stupid cunt. ( )