4 ★ — Root Rot feels like a damp, hallucinatory, fungal fever dream. If this were an A24 film (and it practically begs for that specific grainy, folk-horror aesthetic), the camera wouldn't focus on faces. Instead, it would linger on the twitch of a finger, the dampness of a wall, tiny droplets of blood-like dew, and the way children start to blend into the forest foliage. Nislow is great at focusing on these tactile details and at crafting truly unsettling scenes. Even while reading/listening to this on a mid-afternoon walk by the river, I found myself looking over my shoulder more than once (I recommend experiencing the book like this).

I won't say too much about the plot because it's best to go in blind. In short, Root Rot is about a family gathering at the Grandfather's Lake House, with a series of unnamed Adults (of little importance) and nine children (the Cousins, we care about them).

The most interesting narrative choice was the erasure of selves: by stripping the Cousins of names and substituting them with more generic labels — The Liar, the Crybaby, The One Who Runs Away — Nislow mirrors the way intergenerational trauma works. In a "rotting" family, you aren't a person; you're the role you serve — The Pleaser, The Scapegoat, The Black Sheep. It's initially frustrating to keep the cousins straight. I found it hard to remember their genders or ages, but that became less important over time. This stylistic choice forces the reader to experience the same dehumanization the children feel — becoming a blurry, collective mass of nutrients for the Grandfather's land.

Unsurprisingly and quite immediately, I was a fan of the atmosphere. This is one of those books where, even if you didn't enjoy the writing style or the plot, you might stick around just for the vibes. I, however, also happened to enjoy Nislow's writing and where they took the story. The characters in Root Rot inhabit a similar atmosphere to one of my all-time favorite shows, The Haunting of Hill House. The Cousins' dynamic reminded me of the Crain siblings so much, and this inevitably made me care for them more from the get go.

The horror at the core of Root Rot is the slow, maddening realization that your family tree is a strangler fig, with no salvation to be found in its branches. It's a haunting achievement in folk horror that will make you look at the soil beneath your feet with newfound suspicion.

Thanks to NetGalley and Creature Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book! All opinions are my own.