This is probably one of the best novellas I've ever read. I thought it did a really good job at capturing a very spooky and eerie vibe, especially the early scenes. There was one sort of jump between scenes that gave me a bit of whiplash near the end, maybe I wasn't paying enough attention but it felt like a very strange vibe switch for no reason but then quickly regained it's footing. I'm very excited to see what this author writes in the future!

I’m not really sure what I just read. It was definitely a fever dream. But it seemed so far out that I found myself reading the same thing over and over again to process what I was reading. It wasn’t holding my interest and I found myself zoning out. It took me 8 days to read this little novella! It was incredibly hard to follow the characters because no one had actual names. It was names like “Cry Baby”, “The One Who Ran Away”, “The Liar”, “Boy Twin”, etc. There were no chapters it just read as one continuous book with little breaks. It all blurred together. The beginning of new paragraphs were barely indented and when people talked nothing was in quotations instead it was italicized. It did however remind me a little bit of Annihilation and I loved that story. Definitely odd but there were a few genuinely disturbing moments towards the end.

Thanks netgally and creature for this eArc.

Nine children gather at their granfather's lakehouse-nameless but characters each. The liar. The secret keeper, the oldest, the one who runs away, the one with the beautiful voice, the crybaby, the twins, and the baby. Are sequestered together in the childrens wing foe the first time in years, paired off to bond and their parents are, reliving their youth and reconnecting. But as the family is gathered, stranger and stranger things start happening and slowly, each child is lost or replaced, becoming part of the unsettling landscape and the foundation of the house...and maybe the family?

I love a spooky little treat, but this book was not for me. The ambiance was great, and there was a sense of creeping dread in the beginning of the book i was VERY in to, but i then had a hard time keeping track of the characters through their actions but because their titles werent repeated enough in my opinion so that in the course of a conversation you forget who was talking to whom. Even in the climactic conversation of the story, where the reasonings are supposed to be revealed, i could barely remember who was speaking, and i had to read it more than twice to try to make sense of it. I still dont think i really have it... grateful for the arc but not my favorite.

this is a 3.75 rating, rounded up.

sometimes you take a gamble on a book with an amazing cover and are rewarded. it took me a while to get hooked, but this is such an interesting, eerie, dream of a novel, following nine children and their weekend spent at their grandfather's lake house, and all that unravels. the children being unnamed, instead being referred to by characteristics - The Liar, The Crybaby, The Girl/Boy Twin, The Baby - was a little confusing at first, but it was something i both got used to (some of their voices are more distinct than others) and accepted was kind of the point of it all, when paired with the narrator's omnipotent "we" voice; like some kind of dark fairytale, collecting dust on a grandparent's bookshelf.
horror in novel form is usually quite difficult for me to be unnerved by - i usually have difficulty picturing the grisly scenes being described - so i have to commend nislow's writing, as the meandering, unnerving tone instilled a sense of dread in me i couldn't shake, building up to a terrifying, incomprehensible crescendo. i adored their writing, and i'll definitely pick up anything they write next.
while i was admittedly confused by some of the imagery - and still am, in some aspects - i remember feeling an excitement about reading other people's reviews and interpretations of what themes and narratives root rot is plunging its hands into - family, expectations, and legacy, as well as bodily autonomy and gender, to name a few - which is always a good sign for a novel (well, novella).
i'll be thinking about this one for a long time. some of the imagery in here is going to stick with me. also, GOTTA respect any book that mentions the bleeding tooth fungus.

What a surreal novella. This reads like a fever dream. It’s definitely creepy, and there’s some seriously eerie and bizarre imagery. One scene in particular I found both fascinating and horrifying.

I found that for most of the time I struggled to keep the characters straight - they all have names such as ‘The Crybaby’ and ‘The One Who Runs Away’, but none are ever described so it felt like these vague names is really all they were.
It’s also unclear who the narrator is supposed to be - one of the children? All of them? None of them?

The ending… I feel like maybe I get the ending, so long as (like the things in the story) I don’t look directly at it. The event before the ending… I have no idea what that was all about.

I don’t know quite how to feel about Root Rot. I don’t know if I liked it, exactly, but I was fascinated by it and it’s beautifully written.
I think it’s one you really have to read and find out about for yourself.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

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!