I was expecting something else entirely when I picked this book up, but curiosity unfortunately got the best of me. To say this was a regrettable mistake is an understatement.

This is a very abstract horror novella, which is why I didn’t vibe with it at all. Regardless of such I did enjoy the gothic atmosphere and the prominence of nature and its overtaking of buildings throughout the entire story. We were able to see some incredible examples of body horror eco horror but I remained wholly unimpressed based on the lack of character depth, development and overall abstractness of the story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Amazon.

Root Rot is a horror novella that leans fully into the bizarre, delivering an eerie, disorienting experience that lingers long after the final page. Vague by design, the story unfolds in a way that keeps you constantly unsettled, pulling you deeper into inescapable unease.

I love how strange this book made me feel. There is something so compelling about horror that isn’t just frightening but deeply, deeply unnerving. It’s not an easy read, but exactly what makes it so impactful. There is clearly an underlying message waiting to be deciphered from this story about gender, society, and family dynamics that I will have to let marinate for a few days. If you enjoy horror that embraces the uncanny and forces you to sit with your discomfort, check out this debut on March 25, 2025.

Root Rot by Saskia Nislow is a haunting, dreamlike novella about nine children at their grandfather’s lake house. Each is known by titles like The Liar or The Secret Keeper, adding to the eerie atmosphere. Strange events unfold—mushrooms ooze blood, eyes blink unnaturally, and reality distorts.

Told from a collective “we” perspective, the story blurs the line between real and surreal, creating a creeping sense of dread. While its ambiguity may frustrate some, it invites deep interpretation. A chilling, thought-provoking read that lingers long after the final page.

This is an incredible novella that blends elements of folk horror, weird fiction, and eco-horror to great effect. Certain images from this are still resonating with me days after finishing this. I need to do a re-read because this was truly so good and exactly what I love in weird fiction.

The story follows a group of children vacationing with their families at their grandfather's lake house. The children are identified by their roles/identities: "The Liar," "The Oldest," "The Twins," etc., which is disorienting at first as we get to know how they all relate to one another and the family unit. This use of names makes the story feel a bit like a mythological tale, where the children are playing roles in a timeless allegory or epic tragedy. Strange and disorienting things start happening and each of the children has a slightly different perspective.

The POV shifts a lot and it's not clear who is narrating or what perspective we're getting. This is very effective at furthering this sense of dreamlike disorientation and the sense that reality is becoming untethered. By the end of the novella the reader gets more clarity on the POV and it all comes together beautifully in my opinion.

This reminded me of Picnic at Hanging Rock (Joan Lindsay), Fever Dream (Samanta Schweblin), Annihilation (Jeff Vandermeer), and, in the way the book explores complicated family dynamics and legacies, Blackwater and The Elementals (Michael McDowell). I can't wait to see what else this author releases!

Thanks for the ARC!

Root Rot is definitely a fast read, but unfortunately, it just wasn’t for me.

While the writing itself is undeniably beautiful and atmospheric, I found the story underwhelming. The horror elements were strong, and the book had a weird, odd vibe that some readers might enjoy, but it didn’t really hold my attention.

I can appreciate the style and mood Sasika Nislow created here, but overall, it wasn’t the kind of story I could get into. If you’re into unusual, atmospheric horror, this might be more your vibe—but for me, it fell flat.

Thank you @NetGalley for the ARC.
#NetGalley

I liked this short story - psychologically scary with great storytelling. There are the TW of child death, body horror and death generally. But you how it's a horror. Lots of suspense created for such a short book.

I am not sure what to make of this book. I felt it started better than it ended, and it could have been much better. I didn't really get any sort of creepy, horror vibe feeling despite the way it was written. I found it confusing in some ways but also understand that the aim was to allude to something and keep it a mystery.

I really wanted to love this book! But I found it quite difficult to follow as the characters didn’t have names.
The imagery and description however is brilliant while the story remains very strange and I’m not entirely sure I followed or understood, but maybe that was the point?! Definitely worth a read for fans of surreal, atmospheric horror.

Thank you Net Galley for the arc.

Root Rot is a peculiar, fever-dream-like novella that left me with mixed feelings. The story takes place at a grandfather's lake house where nine children experience increasingly bizarre phenomena. What particularly resonated with me was the incredibly accurate portrayal of large family dynamics - having grown up in a big family myself, I found the interactions, hierarchies, and unspoken rules among the children startlingly true to life. Finding so much of my own childhood experiences reflected in these aspects made the story feel more authentic and personal.

The writing style is undeniably unique, with characters identified by roles rather than names (The Liar, The Secret Keeper, The Crybaby), which creates an interesting but sometimes confusing narrative. While the surreal elements - blood-oozing mushrooms, distorted faces, and strange transformations - are intriguing, they eventually become overwhelming, making it difficult to follow the plot's thread.

The book excels in building an unsettling atmosphere and presenting innovative ideas like fungal doppelgangers, but it struggles to bring these elements together into a coherent whole. The metaphors and underlying messages feel somewhat obscured, and by the end, I found myself more confused than enlightened about what had actually transpired.

"There's always something you can do. If you think something isn't your problem, then you've already given up."

Saskia Nislow's novella is about nine children with their families who visit their Grandfather's vacation home. This is where strange things begin to happen, eyes blink from the bottom up, mushrooms ooze blood, people's faces don't hang right anymore-except they do, once you look more closely. Transformations warp the children's sense of time and place. One of them watches the children succumb one by one to an unknown fate, she must make sense of absent stars in the night sky, vials of amber liquid that taste of milk, a funny little rope tied in knots. She's faced with a choice, join or resist, only the choice is not so simple.

This was such an odd but entertaining novella. The characters in this story are never referred to by their names but as titles like The Liar, The Secret Keeper, The Crybaby etc. These alone suggest a lot about each individual.

The story quickly morphs into something bizarre and unsettling. As one of the characters begins to piece together the truth, the actual horror of what is happening starts to surface leaving questions of how long this can go on for.

Root Rot feels like a deep dive into predatory family dynamics, the boundaries of bodies and home, and how individuals choose to react to challenges that go against structures that would harm them.

This was a fun dream-like read. I really enjoyed the writing. The unnamed Narrator (using we/us), how the children didn't have names but were called traits (The Liar, The Secret Keeper, The Baby, etc), how it flowed from one child to the next. It was a short read, but really fun. I loved how it all ended up and the visuals we got along the way.

Thank you so so much to Netgalley, Creature Publishing, and Saskia Nislow for the e-arc!!

Honestly I think this book started out better than it ended up. At first, this started pretty slow, but after a little while I really started to get into it. I think the writing style in this book is really good, and I was really enjoying the supernatural type horror vibes. I also enjoyed the concept of like fungi doppelgangers and I thought that concept was really creative. And although the characters not having any real names or physical descriptions got pretty confusing, I didn't mind it that much!

And I thought that, that was also a pretty unique form of storytelling. But around the point where I found myself getting into this and really enjoying this, it unfortunately started to go downhill not long after. The reason for that being is that, it was just confusing. I started to lose my grip on the plot, on the story, on the horror, and it just felt like a lot of weird stuff was happening for the sake of it being weird. And by the end I personally don't understand why anything that happened, happened.

I understand that this novella alludes to most things rather than outright telling us, and that this book is *supposed* to have a lot of underlying metaphors, but I personally didn't get any of them. Which to me I feel like if you've created an entire message behind a book, but your readers don't really get the message, then that's a problem. I still understand nothing of why anything really happened and was just confused most of the time to the point where the plot felt kind of pointless because of how outrageous it had suddenly become. Which is a shame because I was very excited to receive this e-arc and was also excited to delve into a new, fungal, plant-like section of horror. But I don't really feel like it delivered. I think it delivered in other ways, but not necessarily in the sensical or horror way.

And other than that I'm not sure what more I can say! I'm gonna say that this book was a low 3 stars, I might end up giving it a lower star rating in the future when my emotions really settle on this novella. So yeah!

A very lovely & strange book. I don't think it'll be for everyone but I liked the mix of magical realism and body horror. The narration from a child's perspective added depth to the inexplicable things going on and made the dream-like setting stand out. The writing was concise and sufficiently bizarre and it was, in my opinion, the perfect length.

Thank you to Creature and Saskia Nislow for the eARC of Root Rot.

This is a creepy horror novella with elements reminding me of The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher, The Thing and The Last of Us.

You follow a group of children throughout their holiday at a Lake House owned by their grandfather.

Nislow does a wonderful job of creating an unsettling atmosphere, you can feel the disintegration of human reality as the story goes on.

While the novella follows the various perspective of each child in no particular pattern, it’s always easy to understand where you are.

This is a fun and creepy parasite style horror that is well crafted and enjoyable. Definitely recommended!

For fans of fungi, decay & all things rotten, but also for fans of chilly atmospheres, uncanny family reunions and moldy lake houses.

The story itself was fun, and definitely gripping. I'd recommend it to readers who want more like We Have Always Lived in the Castle or Mexican Gothic, where mansions feel both too empty and too lively at the same time, where it seems you can't trust good old walls and you're not sure if the dark outside is actually scarier than the unsettling warmth of home. I'd sprinkle some of We Were Liars in there as well, for the peculiar bond between cousins, having known each other your whole life but not being part of it outside of holidays ; and almost inexistant adults that aren't of any help and can't seem to believe children actually have minds of their own.
But Root Rot qualities don't just stop at a great, well-executed plot, at an immerse and hazy atmosphere, at vivid settings. No. Its does it with a daring and unique writing that I personally adored and I think truly makes this book a great one. Many people find it confusing or opaque, the way chronology jumbles and stumbles sometimes, the way characters don't have a name. I think it was fantastic and made this an actually fun reading experience. It's not just telling a story, it's also playing with our experience. It works especially well with Root rot, as the very essence of the horror at display here is based on unsettling things, maze-like events and situation where the characters get slowly lost. They aren't sure what they're experiencing, we aren't fully sure of what we're reading. Nislow makes us walk in their shoes by forcing us to embrace their uncertainty, their caution and their dread. I love it ! It also gives a dark fairy-tale quality to the whole thing that naturally fits its themes and makes the atmosphere almost whimsy at times, mesmerizing and dangerous like an anglerfish.
In the same vein, I deeply enjoyed the use of "we", especially as it was mostly unclear who was speaking and why it had this hive-mind quality to it. It made things ever uncannier, creepier as if the children themselves were untrustworthy from the very beginning. I liked that I couldn't really tell if they'd turn out to be the preys or the hunters.

4,25/5

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for this arc !

that was a fun read. not what I expected. i will read more from this author. thank you for the arc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the kind of slow horror that creeps in that you knew was coming but didn't expect anyway.
The word I would use to describe this is eerie. It is a short story, so it doesn't try to do anything it can't handle with the plot, yet the motifs of decomposition and rot and renewal were very much present and enjoyed. The cast of children being given roles instead of their names adds dimension to the story and adds foreshadowing, which I did enjoy. This may be mostly vibes not plot, but the vibes are pretty good.

This is such an eerie, unsettling gem of a story that leans into the bizarre in the best way possible. I love when an author takes risks, and Nislow's choice to describe the children by traits rather than use names was a brilliant touch. It made their personalities and motivations feel even more vivid. Of course The Crybaby is always in tears, but when she isn’t? That’s when you really start to worry. The story carries a distinct Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) vibe, with a creeping sense of unease that builds through grotesquely beautiful prose. The body horror is visceral and chilling, and the warped sense of time and place only adds to the surreal atmosphere.

I really enjoyed this one!

If you are in the mood for a modern gothic horror with a bizarre abstract ending then this is for you. The story follows nine children, who are never given names, as they spend time at their grandfathers lake house for the summer. The story is driven primarily by the atmosphere of the house, woods, and lake. Inside the house voices are distorted, faces change suddenly, the parents exhibit strange behavior, and things smell and taste as they should not. Outside the house is even creepier. It’s set it a highly forested area that is full of rot and decay. Houses nearby have become completely succumbed by nature. There are mushrooms all over, forming odd shapes. The children see and hear strange things in the woods, lake, and even in the sky. The book will be released March 25, 2025. I look forward to seeing discussion about the meaning of the ending.