Hillbilly cannibal horror is my all-time FAVORITE subgenre, so I snapped up Kin as soon as I discovered it existed. I loved the premise of the story taking place essentially after the massacre, with a big focus on the final girl and her finding revenge. How ingenious! Unfortunately, even though I hate to admit this, the story fell short for me.

First off, there were way too many points of view. It was hard to keep up with all of the characters, and some of them I genuinely did not care about. By having so many points of view, there was not enough time to really dive into the hillbilly family, and it was their storyline that I was most interested in. While there were very disturbing scenes involving them and their family dynamic that I thoroughly enjoyed, I just found that I wanted so much more. For some readers, the amount of gore and disturbing content may be enough, but I just expect more when it comes to hillbilly cannibal horror.

That being said, there were some scenes that will stay with me for a long time, and I liked seeing the aftermath of the massacre and how it impacted the final girl. It was heartbreaking and heavy in the best possible way. The storyline was so original and well worth the read. But I did find that there were a lot of typos and a huge overuse of the word "asunder," which really took away from my reading experience. The ending also wrapped up too well for a horror novel, in my opinion, and I prefer my horror novel ending to be more bleak than "happily ever after."

Overall, Kin is a unique edition to the hillbilly cannibal genre, and I know that many readers will find it very enjoyable. It had a lot of great merits, I guess that I just expected more.