My parents died in 2020 and 2021, respectively. I immediately went into what psychology calls "acute grief," and I was stuck there probably until this year. Part of it was that they died under very unjust circumstances. I probably only started coming out of it this year. Reading the author's note at the end, I couldn't understand how much one person could suffer like that. Knowing how hard it was for me, it was impossible for to imagine even more grief. It sounds unbearable to me, and yet the author survived it and wrote this book! He made the parallels between the book and his life clear in his note. This was something I appreciated.

The book was weird and good as far as horror goes. It's the kind that would make a good movie, the kind that is eerie and keeps me guessing as to what is actually real. What I liked most about it was the open truth of human nature outside of the main characters - how we are truly ugly and awful to each other. You know how bullies often put other people down to make themselves feel better? Well, I think this book does an excellent job of showing how we are all guilty of doing that - judging other people in comparison to ourselves and our moral compasses, just so we can feel better about our own life choices. It makes me really hate a lot of people out there, but I know I do that too, even if I really hate admitting it. I probably judge others about how they spend their money, how they raise their children, how they yoyo diet, how they fail to cover their mouths when sneezing, how they do anything that I think is even a little bit disagreeable or otherwise morally questionable. I hope I do it a little less each day, and I hope that when I screw up, I can learn from it. I hope. But where are my blindsides? If I was confronted with someone in a wheelchair with postpartum and a chip on their shoulder, how would I react or approach them, or would I even try? What would my inner dialogue be? And that's what's so great about this book to me. It's less about the content and more about what it makes me ponder.

The content of the book is probably worth a four, but because of how it makes me self-reflect, I bump it up to a 4.5.

Oh, and I just realized Nat Cassidy also wrote Mary, which I loved! I really need to find more of his books next year!!

PS, diatomaceous earth is amazing stuff!!!! So many uses, and yes, as gross as it sounds, people eat it for health purposes. I used it to get rid of a caterpillar infestation at an apartment several years ago. My brother told me about it and told me his friend also took it to lower his blood pressure! These days, I have drying mats made out of them that I use for my dishes and for the bath/shower.

Ableist gargoyle vampires creatures.
ALSO FUCK REED. Jesus Christ. I hate a whiny useless man who makes nothing but stupid ass choices. Idiot.

A creepy, claustrophobic tale of motherhood, body horror, belonging/outsiders, and weirdly, community. The audio production is excellent! Hearing Cassidy describe the events of 2021 that led to the writing of the book was so harrowing - don’t skip the afterword. 

The pacing was so slow! Sure, some of it was unsettling and creepy, but it was simultaneously easily predictable and hard to follow. I often found myself asking "why are you telling me this?" But unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the story didn't make me care enough to find out. I got right around page 200 and I just had to stop reading for my own sanity.

That being said, this book may be for someone, but that someone was not me.

A retelling of Rosemary's Baby that was... fine. If you've read Rosemary's Baby, or seen the movie, you don't really need to read this. It was written well and took a slightly different path at the end, but the overall themes and ideas are the same. I did appreciate the perspective of the female MC at the end, it was different and unexpected. 

The landlord character seemed somewhat superfluous to me. The author needed a nefarious villain and threw him in, but he was more a convenient bad-guy plot device than a well rounded character.