I read and loved I'm Thinking of Ending Things and was so very excited to read this!

Although much different from his previous books, it still has a great ominous tone; spreading the feeling of a nearing doom, throughout.
I did find this to be somewhat confusing, at times. Maybe that was the point, as you feel as confused as the MC, Penny, as she tries to makes sense of what's happening.

There was a lot that went unanswered-which I didn't mind. Its thought provoking and makes you really wonder - would we really want to live forever?

Iain Reid returns following Foe and I'm Thinking of Ending Things —with his latest and my favorite of the three —WE SPREAD. As with the other two books, a movie adaption and the novel has been acquired by Anonymous Content, with Baig set to direct from a screenplay she will co-write with Reid.

This novel is deeply thought-provoking —a meditation on aging and mortality.

WE SPREAD proposes many questions underneath the exterior of a psychological thriller that comes off more of philosophical suspense and literary thriller, which I am a big fan of.

Penny is a great character. She reminds me a little of Elizabeth Strout's Lucy Barton. She is old and set in her ways (much like myself), and her partner, who was an artist, has died.

Penny is also an artist. A surrealist, unlike her late partner, who painted landscapes. Her choice of artistic mode is deliberate. She did not really show her work professionally, living behind her partner.

She is still living alone in the same apartment all these years. She lives a dull life, thinking someone is watching. She has not been in the mood to paint lately. She also does not really trust the management at the apartment (who does).

She likes living independently, and rather than calling maintenance to help, she stands on a chair to change out a light bulb, falls, and is knocked out while something is/was cooking on the stove. We get to hear her innermost thoughts.

When she comes to, the apartment manager is there and gets her in the car. The destination is her new home which she is totally unaware of. Now, I do not blame Penny, I would not like this. She now is not in control. This is where things get claustrophobic.

The landlord is taking her to Six Cedars Retirement Home, a small Assisted Living or eldercare facility. Her apartment was in the city, and now she is out in the country among a forest of cedar trees. What is going on at this place?

She is told that her partner made the arrangements in advance for her to come here. All is taken care of when she is unable to care for herself. However, she recalls nothing about this.

Are they telling the truth, or is something more sinister going on? his novel is like a mystery/puzzle to be solved.

Upon arrival, she learns her things are in storage, and her other things are here, along with her paintings. The room is nice and completely furnished, and surrounded by woods.

She then learns there are only four residents and two staff in total, including herself. They said they had been waiting for her to round out the four. What is that about?

The staff consists of Shelly, the owner, and Jack, the staff member. Trust me, they hover, are nosy, and controlling, and she has no privacy. They have no locks on the doors to the apartments or the bathroom. You may be asleep, and they are sitting in a chair at the foot of your bed! CREEPY!

Besides Penny, there is Hilbert, a mathematician (whom Penny enjoys talking with and spending time with); Peter, a violinist who sleeps a lot and is not much of a conversationalist; and Ruth, a French-language expert who talks and laughs a lot.

Penny, along with the other residents, has a strict routine. They must go eat at a certain time in the dining room with the other four, and Shelly is always around listening to conversations.

At first, Penny likes talking to other people, and she even begins painting again. The food is good, and the place is pleasant and attentive. They even bathe you and help you with walking, etc. This place may not be so bad... UNTIL

However, soon she realizes Jack, whom she likes, always seems to be hiding something or afraid of Shelly. Shelly is over the top in her thinking, making them work, engage, and have meetings every day, and the big one is that NO one is allowed to go outside. NEVER. No fresh air.

Then strange things start happening, and Penny soon suspects there is definitely something sinister going on. This is where the novel takes a turn toward the paranormal.

Are they ginny pigs or a science project? Shelly cuts their hair and their nails, and then they grow back. Then the IVs. What is in the IVs? Also, what is in the food and the tea? She overhears conversations, and she does not like what she hears. Very disturbing.

Is she going mad, losing her mind, is it aging, dementia, or is it Shelly? If she could only escape, and if she could, what would she do? She must save the others before it is too late.

Lyrical. Evocative. Spine-chilling. Eerie. Unsetting!

I read this in one sitting. I was glued to the pages. I just turned 70 and am single, living in a state far away from my grown sons, so aging, living independent, and worry about the day which will come when I cannot do things for myself, dying with dignity, maintaining control and end of life are all viable concerns.

I think this is why this book resonated with me. Even though it is a thriller, wacky, and crazy, as I mentioned earlier, it is also soulful, meditative, and reflective.

Complex and multi-layered— think Elizabeth Strout meets Dean Koontz and Stephen King with Iain's brilliant signature style.

Iain is a superb writer. He is deep, and his books make you think and make you smarter. You may go back and re-read parts of his books to get the full understanding. I like how each of his books is different, from the janitor (teens), a married couple, to aging.

We all are going to die. Like in the book, some want to extend life, others want to enjoy their life day by day and live as independently as possible, some want solitude, and others want people around.

This book will make a great movie, and excited it was snatched up, which is not surprising. I cannot wait to see how it is played out. If you love thrillers with a strong literary flair, WE SPREAD is it.

There are many lovely metaphors, and you will be googling and researching many more things after reading. An ideal book club pick for further discussions.

I also loved the way the book was laid out with one sentence floating on a page, similar to the way Penny was thinking or feeling. Some may not like the ending, but I did! I think the way you interpret it is up to the reader.

Many thanks to #GalleryBooks and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read a gifted ARC digital copy.

Blog review posted @
www.JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: Sept 27, 2022
Sept 2022 Must-Read Books

WE SPREAD is a complex, multi-layered, vastly engrossing, Novel which centers its hooks in the reader's consciousness without ever letting go. Although the atmosphere, background, and environments are often hazy and subject to misperception and misinterpretation [and Gaslighting], Iain Reed's characters are, as always, as sharply defined as a whetted razor's edge, standing out against their backdrop with immense clarity, weaving their wiles into the reader's empathy and consciousness like trumpet vines. Against a backdrop of loneliness, Art, Music, Mathematics, Aging, Semantics, and Speculative Biology, Iain Reed delivers a novel that is sure to be one of the most outstanding titles of 2022.

I've been waiting basically since the moment I finished Foe for a new novel by Iain Reid, and let me tell you this: We Spread was worth the wait.

After the death of her partner, elderly artist Penny can no longer maintain the apartment where they lived together for decades. She's starting to forget things, she's falling more often, and living alone is no longer safe for her. She moves to an exclusive, isolated assisted living facility, and that's where the story really begins...but it's best to go into this one not knowing too much about the plot, so that's all I'll say.

Like Reid's previous novels, We Spread is a book that asks more questions than it answers, and the answers that the reader is able to glean don't come cheap. Everything in this novel -- from the intimate first person narration, to the sinister setting, to the strange behavior of the characters -- is set up to keep the reader off-balance, and it's so effective. Reading an Iain Reid book is like stumbling around uneasily in the dark and then coming out the other side like, "Ohhh, I see what you did there." I just love his ominous, captivating, thoroughly unique style.

What Reid does so successfully in We Spread is highlight the realities and indignities of aging, and it's incredibly thought-provoking and sobering. His approach to old age, that beast that's waiting for us all, feels both unsettling and compassionate. Through his portrayal of Penny, he explores themes of loneliness, the transitory nature of memory, longevity, and the importance of human connection.

I was in thrall to this narrative from its opening lines to its brilliant, if ambiguous, conclusion, which I think can be interpreted in several ways. Here's hoping we don't have to wait four more years for Reid's next novel.

Just like I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Reid’s newest novel, We Spread, will leave you scratching your head thinking, What did I just read?

From the very beginning, I felt a sense of disorientation, a sense of unease, a sense that every sentence had a layer deeper than one one I was reading. It’s a story both philosophical and darkly horrific, both introspective and deeply unsettling.

This isn’t a psychological thriller. It’s not fast-paced or action-packed. It’s slow-moving, chilling and eerie. It’s genre-bending, leaning more toward literary horror.

We follow Penny, an old woman whose partner has recently died. She starts to experience strange things: hearing people talk in an apartment that is supposed be empty, seeing strangers staring at her across the street. After an accident occurs, Penny goes to stay at a long-term care facility.

And that’s when things start to get really strange.

Amongst the strange and macabre and bizarre, Reid explores themes and ideas in ways I haven’t seen written about before. He writes about old age and the fear of growing older, about the autonomy and independence of the elderly and how that is often taken away, about memory and identity, about art and passion, and discussions around death.

Reid’s dialogue is witty and punchy. His sentences are sparse yet rich and powerful. The plot is meandering and the timeline can be a bit wonky. It’s a story that I will be thinking about for a very long time. I absolutely loved it!

I’d highly recommend this novel if you have enjoyed Reid’s other works, or if you love writing rich in symbolism and you enjoy literary horror.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for a digital arc. My opinions are my own.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)
Pub Date: 9/27
Genre: Horror/Psychological Thriller/Suspense

I recognized Iain Reid as the author of "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" (which I admit I did not read, but rather watched on Netflix ) but it intrigued me enough to request this book on NetGalley. Let's just say I'm glad I did.

"We Spread" is a complex read; one perspective presents a poignant story about the fears of aging, loneliness, loss of independence, vulnerability, dying, etc. while the other feels like an unnerving nightmare, one that the reader cannot wake up from. I found it to be a uniquely moving and equally disturbing reading experience.

Reid's writing style is hypnotic, I could not put this book down. Not much really "happens" in this book, and yet there is SO much going on. The narrative is sparse, yet meaningful, and perfectly captures the feeling of confusion and paranoia one may encounter as they begin to age and lose their sense of identity. I was consumed with Penny’s inner monologue. It was an interesting viewpoint we rarely see in fiction: an aging character fighting to remain coherent and fighting so hard against the inventible. Because of the POV, Penny's reality becomes our reality, it's hard to distinguish what is real or imagined and that is really the horror of it all sets in. This book was definitely thought-provoking and raises questions about fear and death, and the negative impacts of living for a long time.

I chose to interpret the story as one that shows us what is lost when age catches up to us and our minds break down, and how death sets an important ending that makes everything else meaningful.


**Thank you to Iain Reid, Gallery Books and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review!**

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

𝘼𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙪𝙣𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙮, 𝙩𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙚, 𝙝𝙮𝙥𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙚, 𝙄𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙍𝙚𝙞𝙙’𝙨 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚-𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙧𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙨 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙖𝙧𝙩, 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩, 𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮, 𝙞𝙩 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙬 𝙤𝙡𝙙.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started this book, this is my first read from Ian Read and it was surprisingly really good.

I’ve heard that this author writes “weird” books and this was definitely on the weird side, but I enjoyed reading it and the writing style was so easy to follow. I felt emerged by the way this story was written and found myself flying through it. I was entertained the whole time and found myself super engaged with the characters and the story.

This story left me asking so many questions and when I finished it I asked myself “WTF did I just read”. It was so weird, but I understood what the author was doing.

Upon finishing it, I found the need to want to re-read it sometime again. I feel like I’ve missed so many important elements from early on, and now knowing how it ended I should pick it back up in the future.

Ian Read has a way of playing mind games with the reader - at least that’s how I felt - and I found myself trying to piece together a puzzle.

I was instantly hooked on the story with the amount of detail and suspense. I felt so many emotions reading about Penny, I felt so attached and wanted to know more about her story. I don’t normally care for characters in mysteries, but I found Penny to be so amusing.

Ian Reid knocked it out of the park with this book, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did - I’m glad I did though! The whole idea behind old age and caregiving was very well introduced. This is definitely a complex and weird book, but if you get emerged in the writing style and story then you’ll really enjoy it. I highly recommend this!

📍 Thank you so much Gallery Books and NetGalley for the e-arc, all thoughts are my own!

Iain Reid always writes the weirdest little stories and this one was no exception. I finished it in a single sitting, and I'm already excited to read it again.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free e-copy.

After the death of her long-term partner, Penny is all alone in the world. She continues living in the apartment they once shared, her world shrinking smaller and smaller with the perhaps inevitable loss of her mobility as she ages. When she has a fall one day, her landlord Mike sets into motion a plan he assures her that she and her late partner had agreed upon long ago.

Penny has no recollection of arranging to move to Six Cedars, a secluded long-term care facility surrounded by cliff and forest. The staff seems to consist of only two people, confident Shelley and the more furtive Jack. To Penny’s surprise, there are only three other residents. She finds herself drawn to the dapper mathematician Hilbert, even as she finds linguist Ruth far too familiar. And Pete… well, Pete only rouses from his seeming catatonia in order to eat or play the violin, which doesn’t really lend itself to forming meaningful new relationships.

While Penny is disoriented by the move, she does welcome having company again. It’s especially refreshing for her to be surrounded by people who see her as more than the helpmeet and shadow of the charismatic artist she’d spent her life with. Soon, she’s inspired to take up painting again herself, finding an unexpected late in life contentment.

But then strange things start happening to her. Everyone at Six Cedars feels a little too intimate, both with her and with each other, and Shelley’s preoccupation with biology soon begins to feel sinister. Unnerved, Penny asks Jack:

QUOTE
“But why am I hearing noises I’ve never heard before?”

“Because you were alone before.”

“And now?” I ask.

“And now we live here together. The headphones will help. That’s exactly what they’re for. You’ll be able to paint and focus for as long as you want.”

“Those headphones will help with how I feel?”

“They’ll help with the sounds you’re hearing. It’s an old house. Thin walls. It took you a long time to get used to the creaky floors, too, Penny.”

A long time? I just got here.
END QUOTE

With time slipping away from her, Penny’s fear and paranoia begin to escalate as she wonders if something nefarious is being done to loosen her grip on reality. Shelley and Jack are quick to reassure her that everything is fine, but look to be at odds themselves. As the terror of losing both her freedom and her sanity descend, Penny must search for allies and a way out of the nightmare that’s slowly taking over what’s left of her life.

The most poignant part of this psychological thriller, that also serves as a powerful metaphor for aging, is how cognizant Penny is of what she’s losing even as she’s fighting so hard against what seems to be inevitable. Contemporary mystery novels are (awesomely) filled with spry elderly characters solving crimes and dispensing acerbic advice: rarer are the books written from the viewpoint of elderly victims trying to keep coherent their unraveling senses of identity. What’s worse for Penny is that Six Cedars felt like a second chance for her. Even before she arrived, she had looked back on her life – one in which she essentially sacrificed her own career and feelings for her partner’s – with regret:

QUOTE
It’s sad how I live. Isn’t clarity supposed to come with age and experience? If I had more time, I could make changes. I could learn more. I could work more, paint more. Knowing I could have been a better, more accomplished painter, but now it’s too late. It all comes down to not having enough time. I wish I could go back.
END QUOTE

Six Cedars does initially offer Penny the time and space she needs to pursue her own passions again. But as the days go by, her desires begin to commingle with her reality in a pressure cooker of anxiety that Iain Reid deftly, heartbreakingly conveys with spare prose that both welcomes and rewards re-reading.

We Spread is beautifully written, with a haunting tension that leads to its ambivalent ending. It treads into speculative fiction territory the further Penny stumbles through the nightmare of Six Cedars, but never quite commits to being anything besides a moving, often terrifying meditation on what it means to age.

That was., well, something... It's a hard one to describe and you won't know if it's for you until you start to read it. And even then you still may not be sure. I know I'm not making a lot of sense, but honestly I have no idea how to describe the experience of this book. Much of the writing is absolutely phenomenal. It is lyrical and lovely and evocative and disturbing. Ditto the story. At least, what I take it to have meant. And that's where things start to get confusing - I'm really not entirely sure what I read although I enjoyed the experience of it.

I was not familiar with the author before this book but was intrigued by the descriptions and the reviews so decided to give it a go. It's very short and reads very fast. The writing is excellent and there are about 10,000 possible interpretations of it - much like one of the paintings Penny describes throughout the course of the narrative - but I don't really know what to make of any of them.. (To be fair, that is much the reaction I have to abstract modern painting also.)

On the whole I enjoyed it. It's quite evocative, with a tension pervading the pages that is palpable. I'm intrigued by the meandering and obtuse wat the author presented the story, and will pick up another title of his to see if that is indicative of his writing style or unique to this book.

I feel like this story started out so strong. We meet Penny, a woman living out her final days in an apartment full of stuff, but empty of life. After a fall, she is moved to an assisted living facility which she’s told she picked out with her late partner, a gifted an enigmatic painter. Penny’s own painting has stopped as she ages and loses the passion she once felt. But the house she’s living in seems to have a life of its own. The caretaker is odd, and Penny begins to worry that something sinister is happening to her and the other residents. How can she take back the life she thought she was ready to give up? And does she have time?

I was completely engrossed in Penny’s inner life and loved being an internal witness to the vagueries of old age. This is a perspective we rarely get to see in fiction, and I loved it. The eery reality of the facility became more and more tense and I was looking forward to finding out more about the possible underbelly of the place with our heroine.

However, this part of the narrative fell off abruptly and with too little exploration, as if the author simply ran out of steam. The ending was relatively satisfying, but that gaping hole in the climax was disappointing.

Well written, but ultimately a bit shallow.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free copy. These opinions are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley and Gallery Books for the ARC of this!

This was so creepy and engaging, I read this in one sitting and couldn’t put it down. I find the concept of memory loss to be uniquely terrifying, and this played strongly on that, as the main character’s memory and sense of time slip away.

I love a book that has me constantly at the edge of my seat, and Iain Reid nails that feeling in We Spread.

Penny, an elderly woman whose longtime partner passed away, lives in an apartment by herself until she has a fall. Deemed unsuitable to live alone, she moves into a remote assisted living facility that was arranged by her partner years earlier. She doesn't have any recollection of this. Confused by the circumstances but still curious, Penny makes the best of her new situation. She rediscovers past activities she disregarded in her advanced age - painting, chatting with people her own age, and eating a full meal.

All seems well at first, but things quickly start feeling off. Is her memory slipping? Is she being paranoid? Or is there something more sinister happening in her new home?

The haunting atmosphere of this book made me excited to learn how events would unravel. The aging process is already a terrifying prospect. When you add in an untrustworthy caretaker that infantilizes you and an old house in the middle of nowhere, it creates a story that's truly ominous and unexpected.

Similar to the writer's earlier book, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, there's uncertainty at the end that allows the reader to fill in the blanks. Sometimes I wish I had all the answers, but I enjoyed the ride enough to read it in one day.

I think We Spread is one of those books that's best enjoyed with little context so I'm not going to say much. Our narrator Penny is an aging artist who has recently found herself at a unique long-term care residence, but she's unsure whether she's found a utopia or something more sinister.

I've read all of Iain Reid's novels, <i>We Spread</i> being his third. His writing style is uniquely enchanting: suspenseful, mysterious, dark, and dream like. I always feel as though I'm stumbling about his stories, confused, but captivated, alert for any hints for where we'll end up, confident in Reid's ability to guide me on our journey. This is probably my least favorite of Reid's books, but I still thought it a brilliant and consuming read.

I loved this but it did hit a bit hard. We are all aging every day and it is one thing we cannot escape. Six Cedars was terrifying in a subtle way. This is not horror in the usual sense, but it’s definitely horror.

I read the author's previous book I'm Thinking of Ending Things, so going into it I knew that you can't take everything you read at face value. This is a book that captures the anxiety and loneliness of growing old alone. Penny is a widower, living by herself in an apartment she been in for 50 years. After she starts hearing things and then has a bad fall, the building's caretaker Mike, takes her to an assisted living home that her and her partner arranged for before he passed away.

The story is chilling and creepy. It's hard to tell if ominous things are going on at the home or if it's just Penny's memory failing her. The fear of death lingers among everyone there, but for the most part they seem to make the best of their life there. However, Penny constantly feels like the homeowner Shelly is odd and sometimes controlling... but maybe it's just her annoyance of living with these new people?

It's a thought-provoking book that leaves a lot unanswered. It's one of those books that you remember but aren't exactly sure what to think about it after finishing it.

I really loved Iain Reid’s first book, Foe, so I was really excited to read his newest work. This is such a quirky and interesting story. I honestly don’t understand what even happened, but I really enjoyed it. Penny was a fascinating character and there is so much that be taken from this story. It is a commentary on growing old, community, and loneliness.

The feeling you get reading any of Reid's novels is that you just know that something is a little off and We Spread is no exception. I really enjoyed this book but wish the creepiness that I was getting from the beginning of the book world have continued though the story.

The ultimate "what did I just read???" experience. This is the kind of book where I leave with more questions than answers, but that seems to be what Iain Reid does so well. The unsettling atmosphere thoroughout the story was done perfectly and I love the exploration of aging and the ways in which our society devalues the elderly. I would absolutely reccomend this one to fans of the authors previous work.

Recieved the e-arc today and devoured the book in a matter of hours on my couch during this lovely workbreak Covid has given me. While not as a mind bending as Reid's first novel, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, it still messes with the mind quite nicely, and leaves us asking ourselves what in the fuck did we just read?!?

Turning his attention to the elderly, he pokes a finger at some of our biggest fears - what happens when we start to outlive our loved ones? Who can we trust to look after us, care for us, do right by us? And what happens when we can no longer trust our own memories?

Apparently, Penny's longtime partner set her up for this exact situation, preparing a home for her at Six Cedars - a very small, very isolated retirement community that she doesn't recall discussing with him - in the event that he dies, which he has, and she's no longer able to care for herself on her own, which her landlord Mike believes after she takes a spill off a chair and gives him a scare.

Though Penny is moved into Six Cedars against her will, she quickly acclimates to the kindness of others, until things start seeming just a little bit... off. The owner Shelley and the sole staff member Jack talk to her as though she's been there a while, reminding her of things she's told them that she has no memory of sharing, and she swears she's only been there a few days. Mornings and evenings seem to pass interchangably, the other residents are starting to act strange... and Penny is determined to figure out what the heck is happening to them all.

This book reminded me so much of a movie I watched not too long ago with my husband, called The Manor, where an elderly woman is sent to a rehabilitation center and quickly determines some evil activies are taking place... only here, in We Spread, we don't really get the answers Penny is seeking. And I think we're kind of ok with it?