Root Rot is a tiny novella with BIG weirdness, And this is coming from someone who loves weird books. Nine children, who are only known by descriptors like "The Liar" and "The One With the Pretty Voice" attend a family reunion at a lake house, where strange things are afoot. Go into this one blind- it's worth it for the complete fever dream quality of the writing. TW for body horror.

Thankyou NetGalley for this arc copy, this book is a lucid dream in a short novella & I mean this in a good way, the experiences every character has keeps you on your toes creating your own theories and thoughts on how this book is gonna end. I found it fun making up my own theories and thoughts throughout this short read.

This was a trip! To be honest, I am not sure I can describe this strange little novella but I enjoyed it! It is told from a tricky perspective, that you have to experience to understand, and follows a group of children while on a family retreat at a Lake House. Things grow, die, rot, regrow, rot again. Lots of eerie moments, some visceral descriptions that will stick with me, and a final pay off that I’m going to read again just to let it sink in. Ha, not pun intended.

Root Rot was something…
I really wish the characters had names; especially seeing that we have 9 character to keep track of? Formatting makes it a bit hard to consume. The story is interesting but didn’t keep me entertained.
Thank you to Net Galley & Creature Publishing, LLC for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sadly I didn't care for this as much as I wanted to. The writing felt a little slow and melancholy for this story. I actually enjoyed the story but the writing is what made it less enjoyable for me.

Root Rot is a surreal, fever-dream of a novella that simply cannot be easily categorized. It’s not your typical horror story, but rather something entirely its own—blending unsettling ambiguity with a strange, hypnotic charm. The plot follows a family reuniting at a remote Lake House after the passing of their Grandmother. While the adults remain largely in the background, the narrative alternates between the perspectives of the nine unnamed children, identified only by their titles: The Oldest, The Baby, The One Who Runs Away, The Crybaby, The Secret Keeper, The One with the Beautiful Voice, The Liar, and The Twins (Boy Twin and Girl Twin).

From the outset, the narrative immerses you in a dreamlike haze, where strange events in the Lake House and the surrounding woods are glimpsed, partially understood, and then inexplicably forgotten by the children. Each chapter builds upon the last, layering eerie moments as ventures into the woods leave the children altered in imperceptible ways. Just when you think you’ve grasped what’s happening, the narrative slips through your fingers, leaving you lost in its disorienting labyrinth.

The use of labels for the children is both intriguing and frustrating. At first, one would assume these titles define their personalities or roles within the story, but as events unfold, it becomes clear that they reveal more about the limits of labels than the characters themselves. This subversion adds to the story’s enigmatic quality, but it also makes it difficult to distinguish the children or track the family connections.

While the progression of the story is often confusing, this confusion feels deliberate, challenging the reader to piece together meaning from fragmented perspectives. The narrative invites multiple re-reads, as each pass promises to reveal new layers, clues, and context. It’s a book that will thrive on interpretation, rewarding those who enjoy diving into the strange and unexplained.

Root Rot is a fascinating read that will appeal to fans of surreal, thought-provoking fiction. It’s a story that lingers in your mind, challenging you to unravel its mysteries long after you’ve turned the final page. If you enjoy books that make you question what you’ve read, and maybe even your own comprehension, this is the kind of story you’ll want to revisit again and again.

Thank you Netgalley for this advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review. I look forward to exploring more of this author’s work in the future.

Gothic, weird and beautifully terrible. It’s giving ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ meets mycologic body horror. I was truly anxious and utterly captivated. A fantastic debut.

Quite an interesting setup that gradually gets horrifying and terrifying for the children in the book. It however requires a longer drawn out full length novel to appreciate the story on a deeper level. A lot of time the experiences detailed seemed abstract and has a feeling of detachment to it when the narrator is going through the experience themselves.

Still an enjoyable short read.

<i>Thank you to Netgalley and Creature publishing for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Thank you to Creature Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC!

3 Stars. This was absolutely horrifying. I found myself confused as to what I was reading for 90% of the book but in a good way. There's not a lot to say and I recommend going in to this with as little knowledge as possible for the best reading experience. A hazy, eerie, fever dream of a story.

This looks like a really great book and I really wanted to read it! However, the file was not set up to use alternative fonts and I have dyslexia. The font used was very hard to read and so I had to put the book down. I will probably buy it at some point though! Thank you for giving me a chance to read it.

Every neighboring house has been claimed by mold, causing the original occupants to move away. Yet Grandfather's spacious house has been untouched by the passing of time, as if he and the surrounding land have some sort of agreement. When The Family gathers for a reunion, nine children enjoy their time unsupervised on the property. However, the longer they stay there, the more they realize something isn't right, and one-by-one they stray from their safe group...

'Root Rot' is not an easy book to summarize. The characters do not have names and are referred to by epithets, and so much of the plot revolves around characters having hazy memories and not remembering where another character was that it almost feels like the narrative is playing a shell game. It's both clever and frustrating, and how you feel about this is how you'll feel about the rest of the novella. I'm in two minds about it--on one hand, the vagueness helps with the misdirection and the atmosphere, on the other... I got a little annoyed with the multi-word epithets. 'The Oldest' and 'The Crybaby' are alright, but having to read 'The One with the Beautiful Voice' over and over gets a little dry. The characters themselves are pretty one-dimensional, which isn't a problem with the short length, but it does make it a bit hard to keep track of all nine of them.

I mean this with no unkindness, but 'Root Rot' feels like a short story you'd read in a high school English class that would disturb you as a high schooler and haunt you for the rest of your life. I wish a bit that it was shorter (maybe cutting out some of the backstory given to The Liar, because while it helped her to stand out it didn't affect the story that much) or longer (giving some of the other cousins more definition), but it left an impression on me and managed to scare me. I'm not entirely sure if I'd recommend it or even if I liked it, but it was certainly strange and it kept me engaged.

For the majority of this book, I had to ask myself, "what the heck is going on?" Several times I had to reread a passage and the narrative style was not something that worked for me. However, the imagery was unsettling and very well done for what I am calling a "folk style" horror. Great for those who like psychological elements to their horror. Also a short read, so great for those looking to dip their toes into a folksy, psychological mystery with imagery that will stay with you for a while.

I don’t really know how to review this book. Lots of people have used the terms fever or feverish, and they are perhaps the most apt terms to use. I was left feeling like this was a fever dream, where fragments or feelings are left but no real sense of coherence. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it.

Although it was original, and somewhat clever, to use nicknames rather than actual names, it did take a lot of time to get used to. By the time I was acquainted with the writing and the naming styles, the book was almost over. It was a lot to accommodate in a novella. I would read others by the author; as the right topic could become a remarkable book.

The first ten pages of this book were fantastic.
Obscure family relations coming together to maybe honour a dead relative…exceptionally weird. I loved just how creepy that first dinner was and then…it kind of devolved into a confusing fever dream. I really don’t understand what happens in the book and every time I thought I had a grasp on what was going on, I was wrong.
Even the epilogue didn’t help.

Thank you NetGalley and Creature Publishing for the advanced copy but this book just wasn’t as fleshed out (ha!) as it should have been.

If you were expecting a standard, run-of-the-mill horror, this is not it. Root Rot is as if you crossed The Last of Us with The Stepford Wives, in a sense but with a better usage and description of the science aspect of it (with the flora and fauna). The introduction of the setting and characters have a familiarity to them yet distanced at the same time. A "one-of-us" mob mentality, if you will,-type of creepiness. Infusing nature into the descriptions made the story much more vivid in the mind's eye. I don't know if cozy horror is a thing that exists but the playful scenes in conjunction with the horror aspects can, most definitely, be what this story can be described as.

Nine children, known only by their monikers - The Liar, The Secret Keeper, etc. - are gathered at the family vacation home when strange occurrences begin to creep in. The less the reader knows about the plot, the more haunting and delicious this dark little book will be.

Nislow crafts a creepy fever dream punctuated by small nightmares which slowly reveal the insidious presence preying on the children. The writing style is dreamy and heavy on the vibes. Narrated from the children's perspectives, the mystery slowly reveals its tragic roots, culminating in a chilling conclusion.

This was ok! There were some really original and creepy images and I liked the overall feeling of confusion and disorientation.

This novella is written beautifully, and feverishly interesting but the character names were hard to follow and sometimes confusing. I think there are a lot of bold, creative decisions that are quite striking and unique and kept me turning the pages, but they don't necessarily pay off in the end. I did struggle to keep up with the character names and who was who.

I think it would be worth a re-read and I could see my rating going up from 3 stars afterwards, but I found the novella too short for me to wrap my head around everything by the time the story concluded - which may be exactly what the author intended and it just might not be for me.

Thank you to Creature Publishing and to Netgalley for this free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a weird novella that mostly works.

I liked the writing style with its nameless characters aside from some identifiers (we're at the Lake House, with our adults and nine children--the Baby, the Liar...). We're following sort of interconnected events...scenes? in which our kid characters witness some truly bizarre stuff that is difficult to explain. I found that this worked and grew increasingly uncomfortable the longer it went on. For me, the middle of the story was the strongest and I would recommend this horror story to those looking for something truly weird.

The cover is AWESOME.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Creature Publishing for the ARC!

3.25 stars!

Okay this was written so well and certain scene were so eerie and creepy, it was fantastic! And for short story I got well involved in what was happening even if I felt somewhat lost I was invested in this bizarre story. The only problem for me was keeping track of characters as they aren't not named but are given titles to their characters, it took some time to get used to because I was trying to keep track on who was who.

But the scenes in this are so creepy, especially the dinner table scene with the legs for one and I could name a few more but would prefer to not spoil it here.